The Day After

Hi, everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We sure did. It was great having lots of family around. More on that and family stuff if I have time during this post. I'm going to try to assemble and install a storm door today while we have relatively warm temps. Then the interminable door project will be complete ...

First things first.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the Gravy Train 12 at 8:00 AM at Running Room. If you run the whole course, it's about 12 miles. A 5K loop and then out and back on the Mayowood bike trail, which should be dry and clear. Run as much of it as you like. Please bring a non-perishable food item for Channel One Food Shelf if you are so inclined. Thank you Jean Murray for organizing this event.

While you're at Running Room, check out the sale. Select discontinued apparel 50% off. 20% Off All Nike Timewear and Nike Heart Rate Monitors. Friday and Saturday only: 15% all regular priced shoes, apparel and accessories. You can also bring in your used running shoes to the store at any time (still wearable, laces tied together). They get shipped over to Haiti, to be worn again. Thank you Vicki Martinson for taking care of this.

Route for Carol on the Run on Wednesday, December 3 at 6 pm. We'll begin at Running Room and head for Charter House (about 1.5 miles). Then Samaritan Bethany on 8th, Samaritan Bethany Heights (by Assissi Heights on 14th St NW), then to Ronald McDonald House and back to Running Room. Total distance: about 6 miles. Thank you Larry Pederson for once again being our routemeister. He's also going to print out some lyrics for us. :-) You are encouraged to wear festive garb, headwear and jingle bells.

Congratulations to Chris O'Brien for correctly identifying all of the "Who Is It?" photos in the December RTC News. She wins a dozen cookies. Way to go, Chris!

Here's a link from Mike Schmitt to a story on whether the mega-marathons (Chicago, New York, Berlin, ...) are getting too big. Myself, I like a much smaller marathon. I don't want thousands of people watching me in my distress. :-)

Segue to this morning's work-out. After Dad and Ada left, I went down to the Y. There were 3 people in the fitness center. (Everyone must have been out shopping or sleeping off their tryptophan overload from yesterday's turkey dinner. :-) I decided this would be a good time to get back on the Stepmill as my pain wouldn't be evident to many people. It's really a workout. So I did 30 minutes on the speed interval program. I survived. And I didn't even have to press the STOP button. Or fall off the back of the darn thing. But I sure was happy when the 30 minutes was up. :-)

A couple of comments on previous posts: The 5:51 pace I glimpsed on my GPS on Tuesday was just for a second. Literally. Mark was behind me and he'd yelled something about chasing me or catching me or something. So I sprinted down that little hill, got next to the lights in the Northbrook shopping center parking lot, looked down and saw "5" as the first number on my pace. Shocking. But again, it was just for a split second. Then I pretty much came to a halt at the stoplight. And tried to start breathing again. :-)

Also, for that Autumn Salad recipe earlier in the week: The original recipe called for 10 oz. salad greens. I usually have a big bag of mixed greens from Sam's Club and I never measure them. Just use a few handfuls. This time, I didn't have those and bought a 5 oz. bag at HyVee thinking I'd throw in some romaine if needed. The 5 oz. bag was plenty.

The group of us gals doing the Polar Plunge as a team are thinking of getting pink wigs in addition to wearing pink: Photo . I think it'd be a hoot.

Here's a photo of Super Plunger (and super nice guy and super funny guy and ...) Kevin Torgerson wearing his RTC jacket at Chichen Itza, near Guadalajara, Mexico where daughter Marissa was student teaching.

RTC member Steve DeBoer has an article in RunMinnesota about streak running. He's got the longest running streak of Minnesotans. He's run at least a mile every day since June 7, 1971.

Spotted running across the 6th St SW bridge yesterday morning: Mark Carey and Rob Mitchell. I rolled down my window and wished them a Happy Thanksgiving. They were cruising! Spotted this morning, Jerry Goodrich, Mr. All Comers'. He and Lucy and family have moved back from the LaCrosse area. We're happy to have them back.

Well, guess I'll have to save the news from the home front for the next post. Maybe yet today. Maybe tomorrow along with Gravy Train photos. Stay tuned.

I keep reading good quotes here and there. Here's a sentence or two from the lastest issue of RunMinnesota, from an article by Chad Austin: "I have long known what the most meaningful things in life are, and they have nothing to do with material acquisitions, status, etc. It is the friendships and relationships we develop along the road."

Happy trails.