Thanksgiving 2010

I was pretty ambitious this Turkey day! Not only did I participate in a Turkey Trot that morning, but we hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. Our friends that Bivens came over and we held up our yearly tradition of feasting together. This was actually our 4th Thanksgiving together and the first one held at my house.

The food was great! But all in all, it was a really chaotic experience for me. I think I ended up taking on way to much of the cooking myself.

Don't mind Eric, he's trying to be creepy here!

Here's my plate! Filled with sweet potato casserole, a cranberry glazed turkey, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy and a bread role!  Oh, and stuffing, which I almost forgot to make entirely!

Next year, I will seriously consider having Whole Foods make most of the meal for us so I can focus more on wine and socializing and less on recipes and ingredient lists!Hope your Thanksgiving was a great one!

The 5K That Wasn't

On Thanksgiving morning I participated in my first Turkey Trot. It was a 5K to benefit one of the local YMCAs in town and my first 5K! My friend Randi and I both participated and Randi's husband Ryan cheered us on and even better, held our stuff :)

The race started at 9a and the temp was 12 degrees so I decided that layering was extremely necessary. I think I ended up with 2 bottom layers and 6 layers on top along with gloves and one of those hat bands. I actually think I over did it with the top layers and could have stuck with 4-5 and been fine. Plus, by the end of the race I fully hated the gloves I was wearing and thought about throwing them off. They were just $1 target gloves and not fancy running gloves so that might be why.

Here's Randi and I at the start (I'm pretty sure the better picture is on her camera). We decided to line up with the 10 minute mile pace group. 

We started out strong and spent the first few minutes winding around and passing people. I thought we were going to do awesome, but then Randi started to have some breathing issues (most likely because she didn't train outside). I hung out with her for the first mile or so  and then decided to just go at my own pace in an effort to get a sub 30 minute time. After that I was pretty touch and go. The only mile marker I was able to see was the 3rd one, so for most of the race I had no idea how I was pacing myself. My best bet is that I started out way too fast because during the 2nd mile (or what I think the 2nd mile was) I kept on having to stop to walk.

I'm glad I was able to see the 3rd mile marker though because I totally picked it up after that in an effort to make up for some of the walking. I ended up crossing the finish under the 30 minute mark, so I was really excited!

Here I am walking through the shoot to drop off my time tag.

After that I walked back to the finish to see Randi cross. I managed to see her but wasn't able to get a finish line photo.

After a while of waiting around the results posted and I came in at 29:24! I was really excited that I actually met goal and came in under 30 minutes. 

That was until I checked the official race results online the next day and saw the following:

Briargate YMCA/Kaiser Permanente Turkey Trot 2.8M 2.82 Miles November 25, 2010 in Colorado Springs, CO As you may already be aware, the course was inadvertently cut short during the race which made the course 2.8 instead of 3.1 miles (the outlined course is marked off as a 5K). The YMCA and Colorado Springs Police Department apologize for this error and will be sure to correct it for next year.

2.82 miles!!! What a rip off! So basically what I thought was a really awesome time actually wasn't that great after all. My overall pace was 10:26, so I was pretty bummed. However, looking at the bright side, I came in 60th in my age group of 25-29 out of 121 women. 1,744 people participated and I was 931 overall and 391 out of the 919 females that participated. Plus my time beat the average pace of 31:28.

All in all I am still a bit bummed out about it though and am thinking about finding another true 5K to run in the next few weeks. It was a really fun experience though and gave me a good taste of what races are like. I think in the future, pacing myself and not letting the race pace me is going to be my biggest challenge. And, even though the race didn't really end up being the 5K that was promoted, I still want to participate again next year :)

Am I the Tortoise or the Hare?

Since I've started running recently, I've been feeling like I need something bigger to work towards than just a time on a treadmill. So, I've signed up to participate in two different races.

The first is a 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.

The second is a half marathon in May of next year!

I've managed to get a few people to sign up to run both of these races with me which is great! Dan's still holding out, but I think I'll be able to at least get him to run the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Running sounds a whole lot better to him than making a motivational poster and cheering from the sidelines ;-)

I haven't really gotten to a point where I have actual time goals for these races yet, but yesterday I sent a personal distance record and ran 4 miles in just over 44 minutes. Yes, I know that's not very fast, but I'm getting better, which is what matters to me.

Hopefully, these races will keep me motivated to maintain a regular running schedule. I'll be using this blog to track my progress so that I'm being held somewhat accountable :)

It's a Bird... It's a Plane...

It's SUPER CHARLIE!

I woke up on Halloween and decided that Charlie needed a costume. So I spent the better part of the day making him a cape.

And a mask... which didn't work out very well.

His special power was extreme guarding, which he proudly displayed by looking out the front window for the better part of the night and appearing ferocious to all neighborhood children.

His friend Jake stopped by dressed as a bumble bee. This was of course the best photo I could get of the two of them.

I dressed up as an 80s Prom Queen for passing out candy, which was a big hit with the tweens that came to the door.

It was a much nicer look than the Zombie Audrey Hepburn get up I had to wear at work on Friday.

Yes, that's a mimosa in my hand. And yes, it was 10 in the morning. You'd drink too if you had to act like a zombie in front of your clients and colleagues :)

The Sticker Says It All

did you??