Thanks Giving Week

Great week and lots to be thankful for!  There was family, friends, good times and of course lots of running and exercising.  There is even more than that to be thankful for but I could spend forever on that, so I hope everyone knows what I mean.

Sunday - cheered on Jenny and her Mom at the St. Pete Women's Half Marathon.  Drove down there with Jenny's dad, the boys, and Allie.  We some how missed them at the start of the race.  We saw the 2:30 pace group all the way to the tail end of the group.

Eventually saw them just after mile 7 -

I tried to chase after them for a picture of the back of their shirts (very cool shirts!)

Here's a great close up of Jenny smiling (always makes me smile when I see her smiling!)

Just up the street from this spot is a big tree great for climbing.  I always stop by there with the kids.  I thought maybe they were getting too old, but Thomas asked if we could go.  Here he is :

Here I am with Allie

Andy in front of the tree

And a picture which looks like one very tall kid!!

I decided, that since the kids might not ever want to come back to this tree (who knows maybe they will), I decided to take my turn in it:

After the tree fun, we headed over to intercept them on the home stretch

They stuck together the whole time and neither one was wearing a watch, just wanted to enjoy the half marathon.

Monday morning, about 5 miles at 9:06 pace.  Had lots of work to do, but made sure to leave in time to make it to the evening boot camp at Flex One.

Tuesday - Chris came over to run as well as Lisa, we did 6.2 miles at about the same pace (9:08 this time).

Wednesday - ran another 6.3 miles, started out with Jenny, Kathryn and Lisa for about the first mile and a half, then did the rest by myself.  Then, Wednesday evening, after finishing enough of my project at work to let me know I could make the end of the month deadline, made it to Jenny's boot camp where we had extra people.   It was a very demanding fitness test.  I had to hold back just a little bit (especially the walking lunges), since I was going to race the next morning.  Still, a little worried about whether or not I had fried my legs.

So, Thursday morning, Jenny got up early to run with some friends nearby.

I had decided to try the St. Pete Times Turkey Trot 10K, which I had never done before.   Some sort of miracle happened and I did much better than expected.  All I wanted was this mug, which they give to the top 125 men and women.

I wore my green silence shoes which I love for racing and often get comments about (usually good comments!)

Here's me with a group of people, some of which I kind of know.  The guy with the tatoos, Mike, had a lot to do with my better than expected time.  I could see him and followed him in, slowly closing the gap but never quite catching up, today was a big PR for him and his first time under 40 minutes, his goal was to just break 41 minutes.  So, when I followed him to the finish line I was surprised when the clock still had a 39 on it with enough seconds to make it in time.

Race report:


Weaved through the first mile but manged 6:24 pace, 2nd mile was 6:10 and felt great. Hung on after that until I could see tattoo Mike, closed the gap a little but didn't catch him.
 Mile splits:

1. 6:24
2. 6:10
3. 6:28
4. 6:35
5. 6:31
6. 6:23
7. 1:24  (0.23 @ 6:00 pace)

Got out-kicked at the very end by my sports doctor (Dr. Bill Cottrell). I got a mug with 44th place. I wasn't expecting to do so well after Jenny 's hard core boot camp last night - or maybe that is why I did well, along with the shock top with my father-in-law after the boot camp!

2,729 people ran in the 10K this year.

In the evening had a nice (but not over the top) dinner, with a surprise dinner guest (ok, not that much of a surprise, but still nice!!)

Here is my mom and Jenny's dad catching up

And finally for after dinner, Thomas enjoying a cup of decaf coffee

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Friday - I did not run.  Jenny did a short run on trails and her knee finally seems to be getting almost back to normal, combined with running on the softer trail surface instead of the roads.

So, I'm thinking that my running feels different these days.  I can't quite explain it.