What do traveling, peanut butter, Poutine the dog and Roxie Bagles the Cat, 5 Spot dance parties, and running have in common? They are all favorite things of this week’s East Nasty of the Week Kristin Geddis! Kristin has lived on both East and West Coasts, growing up in the Dirty Jerz and then moving to San Francisco to attend the University of San Francisco. She moved to the Third Coast of Nashville with her boyfriend Zach four years ago and hasn’t looked back. Except to think fondly of her time spent in San Fran enjoying big city living and well, you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can’t take the Jersey out of the girl! Kristin spends her days at Vanderbilt University as the Assistant Registrar for the Law School.

Kristin and Zach, her #1 running partner post Oak Barrel Half Marathon 2013

While living in San Francisco, in 2008, she signed up for her first half marathon, the SF Women’s Half Marathon, possibly to prove an ex wrong. Kristin had heard rumors that there would be firemen in tuxedos handing out Tiffany’s necklaces at the finish. She now realizes she might have been a little over ambitious in this adventure, but she continued on with her training until she was in a car accident and couldn’t run for over a month. She dropped down to the 5k and to her dismay there were neither tuxedo wearing fireman or Tiffany necklaces at the race...she might have had her races confused, but this still didn’t deter her from future races.

It wasn’t until her move to Nashville that she started running again. I personally believe Kristin’s path to East Nasty might be one of the best ever. When Kristin and Zach first moved to Nashville, they were fascinated with all of the fast food restaurants, especially the burger joints. So, they made a chart and they decided to eat their way through Nashville’s burger restaurants. Halfway through they had to quit for their health. And she decided she had to do something about her eating adventures.

One of Kristin's first East Nasty runs ever with her friends Ryan and Sofia (photographer)

And in 2011, her co-worker Sofia invited her to come run with East Nasty. Kristin pretended to like running because she was new to Nashville and wanted to make friends. According to Kristin she was the last one to finish that first run and she’s pretty sure someone asked her if she was ok. She admits that she was pretty out of shape (No thanks to all the Nashville burgers!). But since that first run, she hasn’t looked back. Kristin has since completed two half marathons- The Baltimore Half Marathon and the Oak Barrel Half Marathon. She has also run in numerous 5k’s around town, is a regular of the Yazoo Barely a 4k, and her annual family reunion 1 miler.

One of Kristin’s favorite things about East Nasty is the people. She loves that she can run with others and push herself, but not feel stressed about keeping up with the entire group. She also loves post-run beers at 3 Crow Bar and all the friends she has made through the group.

Besides running, Kristin plays golf and tennis, performs the running man at weddings and during karaoke performances. She also makes peanut butter, likes to send trash talking vines to her other half Zach, eat, dance, fist pump, defend New Jersey and cheer on the Jets and Yankees. She is also a pretty excellent travel researcher. If you ever get the chance to talk travel with her and if she’s been where you are going, she probably has some pretty stellar recommendations!

And just in case you were wondering, here are Kristin’s Top 5 Nashville Burgers:

1. Dino's Yankee Burger

2. Porter Road Butcher: 1/4 ground bacon, 3/4 ground beef

3. Holland House Burger

4. Gabby's Burger

5. Sonic Burger

Congrats Kristin! Thanks for making the East Nasty Running community so great. Here's to many more Wednesday runs and many more burgers!