Holiday Fun Runs~

Maw Maw..Picken the Turkey!

My Beautiful Nieces

My poor sister in law ended up in the operating room Wednesday at 9:30pm. "Deb" was having an appendectomy.  Terrible timing as she was so excited to have Thanksgiving and had put so much heart into preparing for it. Andy and I took our  (her son) overnight Wednesday to help out.

Thanksgiving. It was one of the warmest Thanksgivings we have had in a while. Although Thursday is normally a running day for me for some reason it just didn't register in my plans. Running got lost somewhere in between watching my nephew, making sweet potatoes and seven layer salad!
When Andy mentioned going for a run and my ears Perked UP, my eyes suddenly OPENED and I thought.."Oh yeah, RUNNING..I wanna go."

Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same with out a game of "Rook"

The average American will consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone, according to the Caloric Control Council. 

My sister in law came home from the hospital Thanksgiving morning and still wanted to have the dinner at her house. My nephew needed a shower with clean clothes so Mom and Dad picked him up on Thursday around 11:30am to get ready for the "The Feast" as he put it!

Andy and I didn't leave to long after they had pulled out..With the fuel of knowing what I was about to consume for dinner,  I used my future "feast" as a motivation to get my run on!

This run acts more than just a calorie balancer it also performs as my therapy. Running with Andy over the next 30 minutes helped bond us together, prepare us and put us in a good place for the Thanksgiving dinner. Like most families we all get together with a bit of dysfunction. Some families chose to separate themselves from this holiday chaos, but family is important. No matter how weird we can be we are still family.
THE RUNDOWN
Pace: 8:39
Distance: 3:52
Time: 30min
Comments: Thanksgiving RUN , Andy and I had our own personal Turkey Trot. Very Thankful to run, laugh and smile next to my husband.


FANTASY 5 K AND HOWELL NIGHT LIGHT PARADE-FRIDAY
I pulled a 27 hour shift without sleep and with a lot of shopping. My high school bestie, "Holly" and I have a traditional Black Friday shopping spree. We have done for the past 15 years. We met at midnight on Thanksgiving day and I pulled into my driveway from  ten hours of shopping about 10am.
About 6 am words were not connecting, thoughts were absent, and I felt delirious. Like applesauce. I could no longer form complete sentences and the ones I did were making no sense. "Holly" was looking at me trying to figure out if I was for real or not. All "Holly" could do was laugh at me. You know that guttural laugh you get when you are overtired..The ones most of us follow through with by Peeing of the Pants..that was the laugh we shared at Toys R Us, waiting for the caffeine from our coffee to kick in!

I went right to bed when I got home to try and get some sleep before our evening race. The Fantasy 5k.
This was a new Race for us. I was so excited for this race for a few reasons:

1. Fantasy 5K was a evening race.
2. It was unseasonably warm..65 degrees
3. It preceded the Howell Light Parade
4. The whole family was coming out
5. "Danielle" from High school was meeting us to run it.
6. I was going to run next to Andy and try to pace him. 

Austin Being Austin...

We got a great spot on the course to set the family up. Our family hadn't arrived  yet when we had get into our  racing places so we set the boys down and told them to stay put till they got there.
We found "Danielle" easiest enough. She was running as a "bandit" runner and really coming out to run it for fun. I was really happy she was gonna run it along side of Andy and I.

"Danielle" and I

Without warning, everyone started moving forward and next we knew we were crossing the starting mats. There were about 1000 runners in costumes, half naked and glowing in the dark compacted on Grand River. It was absolute CRAZINESS...I loved it!! So many people. So many ages and so much weirdness to look at, I was in my element! It was so packed you could hardly pace yourself. You could hardly move for that matter.

I could see Andy was getting frustrated. "Danielle" and I took the lead to pace Andy and find the path between people. I continued to look over my shoulder making sure that he was close behind. Even after mile 1 we were still congested. Looking for a opening was really difficult. Andy was going for a goal of 8 minute miles. We were running that pace pretty tight. Andy was pushing hard. "Andy, how you doin?" I yelled through people to get to him.  He was not much for words so I knew he was running his max. I just need him to stay there. I kept yelling our pace at him and Danielle and I would take turns giving "That-a-boys". We had to go up the same hill twice and it was nasty. I was so proud of Andy reminding him to relax on his way down and get his head back in the game to head back up it. " Shake it out Andy, Turn them over", "Come On Andy, You got this."

Aunt Lo, Maw Ma, and MOM~

"Danielle" spotted the Finishers Clock First.
The clock light got brighter, the numbers got clearer, closer and closer..25 minutes was Andy Goal time...
Andy turned his legs over as fast as they would go. together the 3 of us crossed, all hitting our watches and quickly checking our time... THE RUNDOWN: 24:37..with a pace of 7:51..!!
This was Andys Fastest 5K since his surgery last November!!

Alec and me~

I think this was one of the funnest 5k races I have ever ran. Now the race was a blast, The Parade was spectacular, but the traffic when it was over...was insane. Even worse than the traffic was Andys response to it!!! Hopefully he will forget about the hour and a half drive home so we can do it again next year!

My Great Niece, Co Co..She laughed and clapped and was the "Highlight" of the parade!

Anita~