A Race, a Turkey, and a Trip

Good afternoon!!  Long time no “see.”  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Ours was pretty fantastic.

Kim and Keenan came down to stay with us for Thanksgiving, which I really appreciated given that otherwise I wouldn’t have had much of a reason to cook a full-on Thanksgiving meal.

But before the cooking  could begin, we had to burn some calories!!

Josh, myself, Kim, and Keenan were all registered for the OneLife Fitness Turkey Derby 5k. Josh ended up not doing it because I had screwed up and thought he was off the night before.  Not so.  He worked until 6:30AM and hit the hay as soon as he got home so he could enjoy Thanksgiving before going back to work at 10PM.

Kim and Keenan registered online, but I’m cheap so I mailed mine in on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  Considering it was only going one city over I wasn’t too worried about it getting there in time, and then wasn’t all worried about it because I got a confirmation e-mail from a different race in the same city, that I mailed at the same time. (P.S. I really appreciate races that provide mail-in registration rather than having to pay the online fees).

Apparently, I SHOULD have been worried, though, because they didn’t have my registration and the whole set-up was completely disorganized.  They ended up giving me some random leftover race bibs and having me fill out and sign the waiver again.

So, that was resolved fairly easily and then we just had a little time kill while trying to stay warm before the race started. Eventually it did start and I went out with a vague goal to try and PR.  I was a little worried about this goal when I realized it was a trail race.  Guess I should’ve looked at the course map.

I was doing pretty well and thinking I might be able to do it when disaster struck… in the form of the finish line.  I crossed it with a distance of 2.74 miles on my Garmin.  Yes, they had managed to make the course short by .36 miles or more than 10% short of the distance it should have been.  I was more than a little ticked off.  HOW do you screw it up that badly??

Though stewing over the crappy-ness of the race, I still managed to get picture of Keenan and Kim crossing the finish line.

In addition to all the other ineptness associated with this race, I noticed today that in the race results my age is listed as 35 (I’m 31) and Josh has a finishing time of 25:07.  Odd since he was at home in bed.

My official time is 26:57 and it ticks me off that this is going to show up in AthLinks as a PR for FOREVER, because I will never truly run a 5K that fast.

You can be sure I’ve sent along a nice, long e-mail to the race director.

Anywho…back to Turkey day… {I don’t have a lot of pictures because the lighting in my house is awful. )

When we got back to the house after the race it was cooking time!!  Keenan was in charge of pumpkin pie, green bean casserole, and the turkey.  I was in charge of pecan pie, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and gravy.  Josh was in charge of deviled eggs.  Kim was in charge of alcoholic beverages. LOL

We started on the pies first thing so we could get them done and get the turkey in the oven.  I found this pecan pie recipe online: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pecan-pie-v/ and it turned out great!!  Interestingly, I realized halfway through making it, that it doesn’t require corn syrup.    I couldn’t taste any difference in the finished product.  Surely it’s got to be better for you this way, right?

Again, I don’t have any other pictures, which is a shame because it was a fantastic spread and the house looked lovely with the fireplace lit (for ambiance, it was 70 degrees on Thanksgiving and I was dying!), candles on the table, and good friends all around.  In addition to Kim and Keenan we had two other friends Ken and Jordan (our roommate) and after dinner Betsy and James stopped by which was a lovely surprise.

Josh chillin’ by the fireplace

With the arrival of Betsy and James, thus began a weekend of this:

Cards Against Humanity is apparently a more adult, fun version of Apples to Apples.  I’ve never played A2A, but had a blast playing CAH all weekend.

After a weekend of lazing about and relaxing with friends, I had to pack up and head to Orlando for a conference.  My flight left at 6:30AM on Sunday, which got me in before 9AM.  Luckily that was prefect timing for my friend Catherine (my maid of honor) to come up and show me a good time around Disney.

We didn’t actually go to any of the parks, but we did have brunch at one of the resorts.  I didn’t take pictures of all my food (because I don’t do that anymore), but I had to share this waffle.

In order to justify the $30 pp (!!!) cost, they send around some of the characters for photo ops.

Goofy and I

Catherine and Minnie

After brunch we walked around the boardwalk for a little shopping and sightseeing.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but I lived in Florida for 11 years (Naples 1994-1998 and Pensacola 1998-2003).  I kind’ve miss scenery like this.

After our walk we headed to the outlet mall because we couldn’t think of what else to do.  In retrospect I shouldn’t have been so cheap and we should have gone to the Harry Potter Theme Park.  Oh, well.  Hindsight and all that.

Random skywriting

Around 3PM, Catherine and I parted ways and I headed to my aunt and uncle’s house about an hour outside of Orlando in Geneva.    They live in the boonies in a long cabin with a pond.  It’s awesome!! I hadn’t seen or spoken to them much since the last time I was out that way which was 6 or 7 years ago.  I forgot how much I loved being around them.  They are such genuinely warm and caring people.

I hung around with them until a little after 7PM and enjoyed a fantastic dinner of homemade chicken and dumplings and key lime pie.  After saying good bye I drove back to my hotel and zonked out.  I’d been up since 4AM!!

The rest of the week isn’t particularly interesting and I don’t have any pictures.  Just day after day of the conference.  I did have dinner with a couple of former bosses who were also attending the conference, but that’s about it.  I’m happy to report that I went for a run one morning and a gym workout another evening.

Speaking of gym…that’s where I need to be headed right now! Talk to you later!

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