REEEESES

Sometime around February or thereabouts, I decided that it was time for me to have a nickname. I had taken to calling my roommate, Dan Nunn, Bacon, for his unusual habit of cooking bacon at increasingly odd times. I would return home from class a little after ten to the scent of that hickory smoked pig fat approximately two to three times a week. Bacon also had several other nicknames including Captain Mischief (self explanatory) and PAJC (for winning the Pan American Junior Championship 5k in 2005). Now, “LBP” is my nickname in the track world, and don’t get me wrong, I love the nickname, but I think I was a little jealous that Bacon had so many.

So, in going with the theme of food that I had used for coming up with Dan’s nickname, I decided to call myself Reese’s, after the delicious peanut butter cup candy bar. It wasn’t just Reese’s either, it was pronounced as if it were in all caps and with much bravado to it: REEESES. Being it a self-proclaimed nickname, I worked hard at making it stick. Speaking of myself in the third person at the cafeteria dinner hour became commonplace, as did sending out mass text messages to teammates while I was bored in class that simply read: REEEEEEESES.

And in time, it started to stick. One teammate told me that whenever she got a text that didn’t say REEESES, she was very surprised (I also got the sense that when she did get a REEESES text, she wasn’t extremely happy). But people started referring to me as my desired nickname, although they started to say it more in a way that seems to say: “Classic Reeses, at it again” and lacks any oomph. Sometimes it was even: “Reeses, gosh him again??” However, I was okay with this oomph-less moniker. So, to this day, and much to the chagrin of many of my friends who don’t agree with self-proclaimed nicknames, I go by REEESES…except for in the track world, where I am still LBP.

And trust me, this will all make sense when you remember that there are no Reese’s in Belgium. The reason that I gave myself the nickname was because I jam on a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup every night before I race. So, as one could expect, I was extremely disappointed to find that I would be reese’s-less throughout the trip. However, I came up with a solution.
I will going as Snickers the rest of this trip. However, since this is a mainly track trip I won’t have to worry about it too much, but feel free to call me Snickers. That is, until I make it back to the US.

And to top off the digression, had a good day in Ghent today, just an easy run and then found a coffee shop that lets me use the Internet there for free! Gonna head back tomorrow and do the same. Pre-meet tomorrow (which means waking up, jogging 3 miles, then waiting til the afternoon for another 3 mile jog with some strides mixed in) and finally racing on Saturday, I cannot wait. I put up a link to the coverage in the Belgium Links column on the right side of the page.

...Check back tomorrow for info on my clothing situation.