Turkeys

As Sagey so sagely commented earlier, I ran a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. Many towns have them, and I think they mainly serve to assuage the guilt of over eating during the holidays. Mine probably worked for Thanksgiving, but did nothing for the gluttony that was Wednesday night, Friday and Saturday.

The race I ran was right in my home town. As expected, the results were not anywhere near my best, but then, that wasn't the point. I ran a respectable time, and had fun. My father ran with me. A former regular runner, he now mostly does other things for exercise, he placed 4th in his age division (no, it was not 4th out of 4). I mange about 16th in mine. My two cousins (aged 30 and 17) opted out. One for a bum knee (legitimate in my book) and one because he couldn't be ar###d to get out of bed the lazy no-goodnick. Can you figure which one was which based on age alone?

The best part about the run was the weather. The forecast was for low 40s with rain. The actual temperature was upper 50s and sunny. Couldn't beat it!

Next race: 9 December, Washington, DC.

Sickness

I've been a bit quiet on the writing front because I've been a bit quiet on the running front. I've had a cold, and I'm not a huge fan of running with a cold. Too much stress on the body as far as I'm concerned.

I managed to get out today for the first time in over a week. It helped that the weather was lovely down here in DC today. About 56 degrees and only a light wind. I kept the pace down and the distance short (under 3.5 miles, about 10:00 minute mile pace) and it felt relatively good. Good enough in fact that I had to hold myself back on the pace during the second half of the run.

I'm happy I felt fine as I'm running a Turkey Trot 5k back home on Thursday. I don't think I'm going to gun for a personal best though. I'll just enjoy the run.

Good Weekend

Well, It was a fine weekend. I got a decent run in on Saturday morning. As one of my classmates following the MCM 10K put it, "the advantage of running a 10k over a marathon is that your body isn't completely wrecked for the next month." I managed over 27 miles last week, so I guess it's a marathon of some sort.
But the big story as I'm sure you'll guess was the end of 43 years of humiliation at the hands of the domers. Some things are worth the wait. I am worried though, b/c I think the old Navy team is setting themselves up for failure with an attitude like the one from a Navy player who said, 'this game was more important than Army' or something along those lines. Only a Navy player who has never lost to Army would make that statement. (The Mids have beaten Hudson High every year since 2001.)

I have to admit, there were more than a few moments when I was sure Navy was going to hand the game to the Irish. Not being able to stop them on 4th and 17 comes to mind. But, surprisingly the defense did manage to come through, not only stopping Notre Dame on Fourth down with the game tied and less than a minute left with the sack pictured below, but also scoring a touchdown. If you had told me Navy's defense would score against Notre Dame I'd have checked you in for psychiatric evaluation.

Can't wait for Christmas(?)

Well, I went out for a run this morning and I can't wait for the lovely wife's next package to get here. It will be like December 25th. (Although I hope it gets here before then!)

Why, because it was in the 40s this morning and that package has my warm running stuff in it. I had a long sleeve shirt and a very nice rain resistant vest on. But no long pants or anything like that. Yes, I have a nice warm hat to wear now (thanks to the nice folks at Pacers). But of course I didn't wear it. Come on US Mail!