Turkey trax 2011 recap

Thanksgiving morning I ran my first race since July (I think). I was definitely itching to race.

At the beginning of this year I set a goal to run a sub 25 minute 5k. The race I ran on new year's eve 2010 was in 26:08 so I thought knocking just over a minute off my time shouldn't be too difficult. Well, here it was the end of November and I was still chasing that sub 25. I ran a St. Pat's race where my Garmin said 24:55, but my chip time was 25:08....wah! wah!

The weather was going to be wonderful for the race this year. I remember last year being fuh-reezing. It was in the low 30s or high 20s (I can't remember). This year was expected to be in the mid 40s. Perfect. I ended up wearing capris and a long sleeve tech T under a short sleeved shirt. Well, the mid-40s didn't come around until later in the day (even though the forecast said mid 40s at 8:30am when the race started). So I was a bit chilly, but even 40* is better than low 30s. :)

My dad ran this race with me and my mother-in-law walked/ran it also. It's great to do these races with other people. It's much more enjoyable to me.

Me, MIL, Dad

I knew my dad would beat me, that's no secret. He is a speedy guy! We still lined up together to start. This was a huge race. Prior to this one - St. Pat's is usually has the most participants with less than 700. There were more than 1000 people doing this 5k on Thanksgiving. That's crazy to me. I was happy to hear the guy on the PA system pre-race instruct the walkers and folks with strollers and dogs to start near the back. This usually helps some of the congestion at the beginning. Of course, there are people who ignore that, but every little bit helps I think.

So, we start out (no starting mat for timing, FYI). It's pretty congested at the beginning, but the street is pretty wide and everyone was able to spread out since there was no traffic.

There wasn't anything particularly interesting or noteworthy about this race. I thought it was fairly hilly, but my dad disagreed. About mile 1-1.5 (or maybe more) was a gradual uphill. That wears you out eventually. I did get passed by a lady with her dog during this hill. They were really moving and it made me wish my dog would run with me for that extra push. I remember last year getting passed during that hill by a guy pushing a double strollers...so I guess this is a win for me this year. :)

My pretty girl, Lucky Anne.

Luckily, after that gradual hill it was pretty flat for a mile and then a VERY steep hill at mile 2.4(ish). It wasn't very long, but at the point in the race it felt like we were going straight up. It kicked my butt.

Once we climbed that hill - we had just over a half of a mile to go and almost a quarter of that was on the track. I tried to really kick once I got the track (less than .25 of a mile left), but I only made a decent sprinting effort for about 100m and slowed a bit for about 200m. That 200m felt like forever so when I got to the final straight away I tried to give it hell.

I still missed my sub 25 even though I felt like I really pushed myself. Bummer.

Some stats:
Garmin time - 25:26 (I forgot to turn my watch off of a couple of minutes so this is my "moving time")
Garmin pace - 8:17 ("moving pace")
Official time - 25:15
Avg pace - 8:07
Overall place - 176/904
Division place - 10/73
Sex place - 55/140

Last year I ran this race in 28:06. So, even though I didn't get in under 25 minutes - I could definitely seem huge improvements in just a year of racing.

For anyone curious, my dad definitely beat me. His time was 22:XX. Maybe someday we can run a 5k at the same pace...probably not. Haha. And my MIL knocked 7 minutes off her time from last year so that's wonderful.

Oh happy day!!

I am in a bit of a funk today. I have been off work for a week now. It's been a great break, but in the back of my mind I know that I am not getting paid for this week (and the next half week I have off before starting on Monday). It takes some of the enjoyment out of it all. So that's my funk...





My funk has disappeared a bit when I logged in to find this joyful post from MrsTote. If you haven't already, check out her blog. She has some amazing recipes and is quite the domestic diva...I know she loves when I call her that. :)

Onto the joy that is this post...I was tagged by Katie at A tote's life (see link above). It's a fun, day brightening tag so here we go...





The rules:
_List 10 things that make you happy.
_Tag 10 bloggers and link back to the person who tagged you.


Ten things that make me happy:

1. Blog comments...hint! hint! :):)

2. Lazy days with Justin.

3. Snuggling with my puppy...especially on cold, winter mornings.

4. Hanging out with friends.

5. Tailgating.

6. Watching football.

7. Meeting fitness goals..whether it be keeping my calories in check for a day, meeting my goal for minutes of working out in a week, etc.

8. Sunshine...oh how I love sunshine.

9. Mexican dinner dates with Justin.

10. My family...all crazy sides of my family.


And I now tag....
MrsEyeCanSee at The Juice is Worth the Squeeze
Michelle at See Michelle Blog
Renee at A Taste of Life
Tiffany at Baby Fish
Shalay at Writefully Yours
Amanda at Amanda's Life Commentary

Amy at Newlywed News
Casey at You Call It Madness But We Call It Love
Allie at Simply Allie
Amy at Life in the Junction

**Sorry to anyone who has already been tagged. :)

Text from last night.

This is the "Foster Following" version of the website textsfromlastnight.com.

I was about to leave work at about 11:15pm when I got a text from Justin...

(913): Your dog just farted out loud. Twice.

I laughed out loud for probably 5 minutes when I read this. She has been known to let out the little poof from time to time, but the fact that he sent me a text about it cracks me up.

It is also funny that when she does something odd, bad, or disgusting she is all of a sudden my dog. When she does something awesome, good, or pleasant then she is his dog.

Of course when I got home tonight, she was sprawled out across the couch. When I walked in, she just lifted her head up and gave me a look like, "oh hey, welcome home. Don't bug me..I'm tired. Oh and I'm gassy."

I love her.

Fab weekend.

I am getting ready to wrap up the weekend and head to bed. I figured I would write a little post about our weekend now or else it might not get done. And we had such a great weekend that it would be a shame to not recap. Unfortunately, my camera was dead the entire weekend so I have no proof of this amazing weekend. :)

The weekend started with a surprise birthday party for my stepmom. My dad did an awesome job planning everything and keeping it a secret. Somehow, he got my stepmom on the golf course the evening of her birthday. While they were golfing, we got a room inside the country club set up for the party. My dad sent us a text when they were making their way onto the 9th tee. One of the country club staff members tied some black balloons to the flag in the hole. We watched them walk closer to the green and then everyone that was there for the party walked out to surprise her. Saying she was surprised was an understatement...she definitely cried.

Once we surprised her, we all made our way into the party room and got the party started. My main job for the party was the create a slide show for her. We kicked the party off with playing the slide show. Not to toot my horn or anything, but that slide show rocked (toot! toot!). She cried again...and so did I. I am a sucker for pictures set to music. I will pretty much cry every time.

We hung out at the club until about 11 and then we headed to my dad's to continue the party with her closest friends/family. I am not certain on the time my stepmom went to bed, but a few of us (including me, my dad, Justin, and some other friends/family) stayed up until about 3 or 4 in the morning on my dad's back deck. It was a lot of fun.

Needless to say, Saturday we needed some recovery time. We left my dad's around 11am on Saturday and made our way to my inlaws. They were out of town, but it's easier for us to stay there with Lucky. After eating some lunch, we all (Lucky included) fell asleep. We slept from about 1 until 4. It was a much needed relaxing day.

We might not have woken up, but we had another birthday party to go to that night. It was a birthday party for Justin's cousin, Jenn. She turned 16 today (Sunday). This party was a bit more low key, but definitely also a lot of fun. We had some good food...including cake and ice cream. We were going to go swimming in their pool, but it started to rain. We watched a bit of the Chief's preseason football game. It was pretty boring so we played Monopoly Deal. It's basically Monopoly in card form. It was a lot of fun. We played that game for about 4 hours. I am sad to report that I did not win a single time. I could have continued to play for 4 more hours, but Justin was ready to go home. We left a little before midnight. It was great to just hang out with the family and celebrate a BIG birthday for Jenn. :)

We used Sunday as another day to relax. We slept late, ate some lunch, watched golf, and napped on and off throughout the day. Speaking of watching golf...we witnessed golf history today. Y.E. Yang won the tournament (PGA, maybe??). He is the first Asian person to win a major tournament. I am not a big golf fan, but it was definitely cool to watch history in the making. I never thought I would be blogging about the winner of a golf tournament, but this definitely deserves a shout out.

We got back to KC around 8:30 tonight and have been doing laundry and a bit of cleaning to get ready for the week. Fortunately for us, we have a short work week. Justin only works 2 days and I work 3 days. We are leaving Wednesday evening for Iowa. Justin's cousin, Kyle, is getting married this weekend. I will charge my camera so I can have show some pics of that (hopefully).

I hope everyone had a great week. Happy Monday..ick.

Happy anniversary to us!

Today is our 1 year wedding anniversary. I can't even believe that it has been an entire year. At this point last year we were having the time of our lives at our reception. Our wedding was amazing..really, it was.

Our anniversary weekend was every bit of amazing. After our piss poor excuse for a garage sale, we dropped Lucky off to be boarded. We made our way to the Legends at Village West...a shopping and entertainment area in Kansas City, KS. We checked into our hotel and went to dinner. We stuffed ourselves full and then had some time to kill before the comedy show. We walked around to a few shops and wasted some time before the show.

The comedy show was OK. We went to one last summer that was MUCH better than the show last night. We still got some good laughs in and a few drinks. After the show went sat on a patio and had a couple of drinks. We heard some good music coming from a bar next door so we went in to take a look. Although it was good music, it was incredibly too loud (maybe that's why we could hear it on the patio next door).

We decided to call it a night and head back to our hotel room. Without going into too many details, the room was awesome. It had a whirlpool and a fake fireplace (which was kind of odd). And let me just say that bubble bath and a whirlpool do not mix very well.

We got to use our toasting flutes again. We had a bottle of pink champagne...even though neither of us even like champagne. The top tier of our wedding cake is at Justin's mom's so we will eat that next weekend when we go home.

We slept late Sunday morning - so late that we missed the continental breakfast (damnit!). After we showered and check out of the room, we went to lunch at a BBQ restaurant. They had some amazing bloody mary's. Yum!

After lunch, we decided we wanted to go see a movie. We went to buy tickets only to find we were 15 minutes late for the show we wanted to see. We had 2 hours to kill so we hit up Dave and Busters for some fun in the arcade. For the record, I beat Justin 4/5 times playing pop a shot. That's usually how it goes. He did beat me 2/4 times at Trivia and 2/2 times at the horse derby. It was a fun way to waste some time.

Finally it was time for the movie. We saw Hangover....which was HILARIOUS!! I highly recommend it and I'm not even a movie person. After the movie we picked up our little girl from being boarded. She was so excited to see us, but very tired after a session in doggy day camp. As I type, she is passed out on the couch (as she has been for the last 4 hours).

Now that we are home, we have just been lounging around, watching movies, etc. It has been a relaxing day after a very awesome weekend of celebrating.

I will make a better wedding picture post tomorrow (when facebook will let me view all of them...because I am too lazy to plug in our external hard drive).

You ARE, in fact, a dog.

I swear Lucky (the cute little girl pictured) forgets that she is a dog. She likes to think she is human.

I woke up around 4 in the morning to find her right in the middle of me and Justin. That is nothing new. She is always in the middle up top (when it's warmer) or in the middle under the covers (when it's cooler). This time was a little different though. She had stolen one of my pillows!! She was on her side with her head on my 2nd pillow. Are you kidding me??

It was actually really freaking cute, I have to admit. I don't have any pics since it was the crack of dawn.

But that's my girl. So spoiled that she forgets she is a dog. :)