Christmas Bonanza

I use the term Bonanza because not only did I make out like a bandit, I also ate like a horse.  We'll get to that, though.  First, I'd like to share a few holiday pointers that help me get through the season without losing my head, because there's a lot of you that turn into monsters out there.  That's just not within the spirit of the season.  Yelling at your elderly mother because she can't make speedy Christmas decisions about what, or if, she's going to buy something in front of your teenage daughter just doesn't send the best holiday message (or teach your daughter to respect you).  Trust me, if my mom makes it to that age, I'll just be happy she's around and I'll wheel her all over the Piggly Wigglies of the world if she wants me to (though we still may still argue politics along the drive).  Anyway, I know it's too late for Christmas, but these seasonal tips can be adjusted for year round purposes:

#1 - No matter how good or how bad you are at Christmas presents, remember that the people that love you will still love you the same either way.

#2 - Don't think of people out in the world during the holidays as rational beings capable of thought.  Think of them as nothing more than objects in space that you have to navigate around to your objectives.  Let's face it, people during the holidays don't have their minds about them, and you can't assume they can think.  I just think of myself as Han Solo in that asteroid field, and expect things to get in the way.  Navigate around and avoid any damage to the Millennium Falcon and be on your way.  This works for the driving, the store, or wherever.

#3 - Reflection not perfection.  Remember the big picture during the holidays and life in general.  It's great you want to create a perfect Christmas for your family.  There's hardly a person alive that doesn't, but the most important thing at Christmas is having a calm, relaxing day with your family and being thankful for the blessings you have been given (even in  especially in the rough years).

I had to reboot this calming holiday program this year, because I just could not think of any gift ideas for anyone.  Normally, I am a cool as a moose in Manitoba, but it got to be two weeks before Christmas, I had nothing for anyone, and I was sick.  I was just blanking.  It was awful.  Instead of panicking, moping (too much), or lashing out, I just decided to follow my wife to a few of her shopping locations and hope things strike me as I go.  That worked out just fine, and she's a wonderful collaborator when it comes to gifts for my mom and sister.  I've haven't bought so many gifts without aid of the internet in ages.

With that out of the way, we had our friends mini-Christmas on the 23rd, which usually results in a good mess of present unwrapping carnage, loads of dirty plates and glasses, and bottles of beer strung all over the house.  It was a little tamer this year thanks to the two growlers in the fridge (less bottles) and some of the usual friends missing because of moving and/or spending the holidays out of state.  I also planned on moving the party to the Electric Six show at Saint Andrews, but I didn't get any takers, which was too bad, because they covered this:

Christmas Eve, both of our families were coming over, and other than the Christmas cookies made the night before, it was up to me.  My wife had to work, and she wasn't going to get home until 5:30.  We told everyone about 6ish, but still expected her dad earlier (he's always early), and maybe even as early as the start of the Lions game.  I figured I should be done cleaning about 3ish, then start work on food while taking in consideration prep and/or cooking times.  With one of the family members now knowing they have a gluten allergy, I had to take that into consideration as well, and make a few substitutions.  Long story short: the house got really clean, my brother and father-in-law swear I made the best meatballs they've ever had, cheeseballs are very easy to make and this is a bad thing for me to know, and gluten-free Rice Krispie treats taste the same as regular ones.  I'm a big hit everywhere I go, even when I stay home, and my wife is really lucky I can handle myself around the house.  I know a lot of clueless men and women out there that can't pull this off.  The success goes double considering I did the bulk of my genius while the Detroit Lions were knocking the snot out of the Chargers in the first half.

Lions?  Playoffs?!  Merry Christmas to me!

Needless to say, we had a wonderful Christmas Eve with the families.  We also went to her grandparents for the traditional spaghetti dinner on Christmas Day and over to her brother's place for some grilling on Monday.  There's nothing better than grilled food in the winter.  As far as the loot, let's just say I received several gifts that will complete my goals of becoming an old man (including a very nice cardigan and a long topcoat).  I also received two that will continue my determination/dysfunction battle in the running universe.

Brewing Kit!!!!

Hydration Pack

Talkin' Turkey, the Missing 5F4, etc.

Turkey Trot

The 55th Annual Flint Mott Park Turkey Trot was easily the cheapest race I've ever ran.  Registration was $5 and you got a long-sleeved shirt and a generic China medal.  There was a clock, but no chips, so there's no record of how fast slow Jason and I were going.  Also, I will not be telling you.

Mott Park used to be a public golf course, but on the day of the race I think the grass was thick enough that you could have given the entire park a comb-over.  Add in that it was kind of wet, a little cold, and the moles (or possibly Dig Dug) have done enough work to make every piece of ground collapse under my feet, and  I had a pretty decent bit of things to slow me down.

Chunky Green Shag

The run was 3 loops around the park, with the front part going up a hill somewhat diagonally (with your right foot more uphill than your left), and then straight down it on some slick ground.  I didn't see anyone wipe out, but I was almost a casualty on 2 of the 3 loops because I was trying to use the hill's momentum.

Food
Come now, you can't say that you believed for one second that I was going to hold off Thanksgiving week.  Starting of what was my 5F4 cycle on Saturday, I had enough pancakes in the morning to be my daily intake of calories.  Sunday was the usual family O.G. punt the calorie day away by lunch.  Monday I pretty much ate nothing but Tyson chicken nuggets.  Tuesday I tried to be good and grabbed a salad at lunch, but after dragging my wife to a speech/book signing that night she was starving and talked me into getting her and I a onion/green pepper deep dish pizza.  Wednesday and Thursday deserve their own paragraphs.

We had our annual friends get together the day before Thanksgiving again this year.  As usual, it was basically a "Meat-A-Palooza" with Ken making lasagna, Jen making beef enchilladas, me making some New England sweet and sour meatballs, and Katie making potatoes chock-a-block full of bacon.  Mike rounded things out by bringing us all some Magners Hard Cider and some Bell's Christmas Ale as his usual drink surprise installment.  After all that, we went to see the Muppet Movie, which gave me a personal record for longest period while smiling/laughing for the year.  I just don't see how it could have been much better.  Anyone that didn't like it just has to be dead inside, because even a rashly cynical bastard like me melted into a mystified 5-year-old watching that movie.

Thankgiving was the usual food orgy.  I started off actually trying to be reasonable.  We went to my wife's grandparents' and I kept a fairly healthy first plate, but the whole thing collapsed under her grandma's pecan pie.  After that it's not like I took huge clumps of things and devoured them, but I nibbled my way to hell with the desserts, all of which were fantastic.  After spending a few hours there and watching the Lions lose, we went to my brother's and ate more turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, squash, green been casserole, and all the usual suspects.  I made some pumpkin cheesecakes, and I had some of that as well as Mom's pumpkin pie.  The pumpkin cheesecake recipe for 2 pies is a liar, though.  It says it makes 2, but I somehow ended up with enough for 4 (freezing the others for later...maybe). 

Obviously Friday was left-over day, and there still exists some left-overs, despite the fact I've made my best attempts at eating them.  I've even gone to the extremes of sharing them with the cat and turtle.

Happy Thanksgiving, Newman!

New Shoes

I have a slight confession to make.  Despite the fact the Brooks Ghost 3 completely tore the crap out of my heel a few times, with a TON of tape and even more stubborness I've actually still been using them.  Now, I didn't really use them for many actual races or any runs of big distance, but for day-to-day shorter runs I've strapped them on every single time.  I just decided that I was going to get my money's worth no matter what, and I did.  The tread at the balls of my feet are completely worn to nothing. 

Other than the bad heel rubbing, which, after tearing the thing apart I've found out it was just a badly placed seam, they were very functional until the last month or so where I noticed they were pretty much dead.  So my outright hatred of the shoes and the brand has been replaced with a "maybe I'll try them again" but I'll "proceed with caution" next time attitude.  Although it would be hard to tell "Hey, this shoe is going to eat my foot up after 10+ miles" in a store.

The other thing I've found is that, even on pavement, I'd rather just wear my trail running shoes.  They just seem to get me more traction and help me pull and push myself around easier.  I've been saving my trail shoes for off-road, but I keep wishing I could use them anyway, and I've finally given in.  Most of the shoes I see for running are too flat, fragile in design, or soft on the bottom (or have an awful zig-zag thing going on), and they wear out too fast for me.  Since it's winter and extra traction is a must anyway, I ended up buying a pair of Adidas Marathon 10 Trail Running shoes.  They were a little slippery today on the paved trail as I braved the snow and black ice.  They'll get better next time out, though.  Other than that, I love the feel of them, and my legs felt like they could have went all day.

Huckleberry Hustle

Nope, no nifty word play again, just citing the name of the race.

Pre-Race Stuff

While I'm bored to tears at work, I might as well give you the setup leading into today's race.  First off, I'm going camping this weekend, and haven't done anything to get ready yet, other than go to Almar Orchards and buy a case (yes a case) of two varieties of organic hard cider (Scrumpy and Solstice).  If you're ever in Flushing, MI, look them up (also see Koans and McCarrons orchards, because they all offer something different).  Anyway, that's the extent of the preparation I've done for the 2nd Annual Canoe Trip, other than making a half-baked checklist of very unimportant things not to forget. 

The canoe trip came about last year because we missed Nick3's (yes I number them, their name is too common not to at this point) 5th of July party.  The 5th party was a summer fixture until his family sold the place on the lake, and we never really replaced it with anything.  We'd been talking about a canoe trip for years, but things kept interrupting it.  One of the years when we actually had it all put together.  It was abandoned because our friend suddenly wanted to move to California, and we had to send him off that weekend instead.  Besides, he was our planner person, anyway.  I'm still pretty sure none of us would have got this thing rolling had my girlfriend, now fiance, just called and set it up last year. 

It was really fun, minus the two boat flips Jessi and I had, which weren't just nice "oopsy" flips.  They were "owww rocks and I can't hold the boat still enough to get back in" flips.  The root causes of the flips are still up for debate, because I haven't learned those four magic words ("yes dear, you're right").  We also had some comedic neighbors last year.  The mixed UofM/MSU group next to us was pretty rowdy until their 8 hour canoe trip wiped them out the last day.  There was also the crazy Canadians that out-partied the entire camp leaving an unending trail of beer cans (which they did pick up in the morning).  They even took a La-Z-Boy  chair that someone threw out on the adjacent road and sat it next to their fire for a few nights.  They then burned it the last night they were there. leaving only some smoldering scrap metal in the fire pit.  As I said, they put our "party" to shame.  Hopefully we'll get a chance to redeem ourselves.  We'll have at least 10 people this year, where last year we only had 6.  I will try not to throw at baseballs at anyone's head, and bring some Sun Chips for the raccoon (see 1st Canoe Trip)

Anyway, the Huckleberry Hustle is a race out at Crossroads Villiage, which is a small park run by Genesee County that has a mid-1800s theme.  I don't believe I'll be in period dress for the race, but I hope that isn't a problem.  What may be a problem is the 6 tacos that I had for lunch ("I love them little tacos.  I love them good!").  That's a lotta taco.  The race is at 7pm, which is right smack dab in the middle of when I should be getting things ready tonight.  Our tent smell awful, so I absolutely must put that up tonight to air out.  If not, I need to find where I can buy some new cartridges for my respirator mask.  I don't see taking the race too seriously, and I want to take a few photos as I go.  That may change depending on how well I digest and if I feel like actually running hard.  I doubt it.  Anyway, updates on the race later tonight...if I have time.  If not, I'll get it with all the "non-running weekend" camping/canoeing stuff when I come back.

The Race

Let me just begin with stating that the streak of me finishing ahead of Jason is over.  He darted off at the start, and there was just no catching him.  I'd like to blame the tacos, that we just had a distance run and my body's still thinking long distance, or the fact that it was a trail run...well no I don't like to blame race performance on anything really.  I was just slower today, and he was faster.  Still well within the usual margin of error though, and with a 5K average that's still sitting around 32:00, I'm not going to complain about a 27:05?...or something like that (finally checked...27:03 officially).  I forgot to take pictures (because I forgot a camera), but I did relax and enjoy the run, despite trying to catch a skinny man with a blue shirt and yellow stripes.  Yeah, I could see Jason up there, but he was a long ways away.  Honestly, I think it will be best for both of us if we actually have a little back and forth for a while.

As I said, it was mostly a trail run, with a little bit of gravel road through Crossroads Village.  It was closed by the time I got there, so there weren't any old timey people around except for a few people dressed as train conductors.  If I had that outfit, I'd just wear it all the time.  Another woman and on of them was addressing us over a P.A. before the race and saying a bunch of things that I'm pretty sure nobody heard at all.  Loud doesn't really help when clarity is completely lost.  Other than just enjoying the charms of the old buildings and town, there were a few animals there (goats, a calf, a donkey, and alpacas), every runner got a free ride on the old carosel (which I skipped out on...they're constantly restoring that thing as it is, I don't need to go all human waterfall on it and erode half the paint off), and they were giving out some berry blue after (which is my official Detroit Lions Kool-Aid...but never seems to do any good).

All in all a pretty good race.  My apologies for no pictures, I'm just not the shutterbug in this household.  Anyway, it's time for me to pack vacation shirts.  Yep, that's right, it's time to find the ugliest shirts I still own and wear them publicly just to prove I'm on vacation and don't care.  I can already picture Jessi shaking her head.