I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!    I had planned on finishing this post for Wednesday night but I was exhausted after a planned hike that grew…by a lot.   More on those adventures next time.  😄

I guess Monday was my first real, official day of vacation.  I slept in.  It was lovely.  I was feeling a little sore (my feet) after Sunday’s hike/ trail run but I was looking forward to a run.   Running outside on a weekday during daylight savings? Yes please!   I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with my feet feeling bruised but they felt pretty good once I started running.

I headed for the river path in the mid afternoon.  Seriously, I would love it if I could run at that time all fall and winter.  How can I make that happen?   Anyhow, my goal was to take this run super easy and shoot for 3-4 miles.     I really missed this route, it’s like the perfect excuse for a progression run.    I kind of zoned out a bit and just kept running.  4.5 miles later I was back at my car.   I might have added more but 4.5 was literally 2 feet from my car.  😉     Even better was that I hadn’t needed any walk breaks.  Last week, I struggled with a 12:00 pace on the treadmill and Monday I ran a 12:53, 10:38, 10:05, 9:29 for the full mile splits.   Why is the treadmill so hard for me?!    No walks breaks but I did come to a complete stop when I saw this tree.  Because holy crap!-

In trying to temper the urge to #runallthemiles on vacation since I’ve been a super slacker for the past month or so, I rested on Tuesday.   I met an old friend for lunch instead.   Wednesday’s workout doubled in planned size and left me feeling a little achy.  I was a little nervous for the Turkey Trot.  But I was running with C and her husband so I was looking forward to it.

Thanksgiving dawned and it was 30º.  Allrighty then.   Then I tried to get up.   Aaagh!  My calves were so tight, they were down right painful.   How was I going to run a 10K?  No lies, I texted C to see if she was ready, hoping she would say it was too cold.  No dice.   I had ProCompression full socks under my leggings and I left my house in my pea coat and Uggs.    I registered for the race in them as well.  I didn’t change shoes until about 5 minutes to the start.  😝

This trot is super low key.  You register on race morning, get your t-shirt and run your race.    The course is an out and back on rural roads and the start/finish is literally in the Food4 Less parking lot.   C, C-Hub and I had run the race before so we knew the course.   My parents usually come to the finish but when I was shivering in my car, I texted them and told them it was too cold and they should stay home.  They didn’t listen.    The race seemed smaller this year but that could have been due the freezing temps.

  
It was go time and we were off!  I was super tight and cold usually triggers my asthma so I was a little skeptic about how this was going to go.  Thankfully C and her husband weren’t feeling particularly speedy either so we just hung out the whole race.     My toes were numb, my hands were numb and my butt felt like it was frozen.    We joked about turning around at the 5K mark but kept going.    It was great catching up with them, I wasn’t able to run with them as much as I had hoped this year.   C-hub kept us running and even thought I wanted to walk a few times, we kept running averaging between a 10:30-10:45.  I felt so sluggish and my Garmin kept telling me we were running in the 11’s.  Guess it doesn’t like the cold either.   I was dreaming of a large, hot coffee from McDonald’s and started pulling away towards the end.  I didn’t mean to but I was letting my legs do whatever they wanted to, they were still so tight.  Mile 6 clocked in at 9:42.    Finish- 1:04:49.    Not the speediest but much better than I had been expecting and there weren’t any asthma issues.    😎 

I also wore my Turkey Trot shirt for the rest of the day.   And indulged in a few too many chips and a second slice of cheesecake.    It was a great Thanksgiving.     I am not fond of crowds so I will be avoiding anything Black Friday related.   My original plan was to go hiking but I’ve put 25 miles on these legs in the last 5 days, way more than normal, and my calves are seriously pissed.  So my plan is to take it easy, maybe take the puppy for a walk.  If I can move.

How was your Thanksgiving?  Did you run a turkey trot?

Favorite food of the day?

Are you shopping?

 

 

• Race Day
• Run!