Post Turkey

I guess we all took a minute to enjoy Thanksgiving.  It's been a while, perhaps since employment that I last set my blog down for over a week.  Probably a good thing.

We did take our little trip to Mississippi, which was wonderful and delicious, though too quick.  It was all of driving there, preparing for the meal, cooking the meal, cleaning up afterward, and then coming home.  In the few bits of down time, I really enjoyed hanging with the fam, as I hadn't been to my aunt's house since about this time three years ago when I lived with her for the fall.  Good thing I married the dude I was waiting around for.  Yay.  Small food highlights:  roasted turkey, fried turkey, stuffing with shrimp, sausage, and crawfish, cheesy baked mashed potatoes, asparagus, brussel sprouts, pies, mini pumpkin whoopie pies (cookies).  Amazing.

The holiday didn't help my run any, but it hasn't hurt too much (yet).  I ran once in Mississippi on a trail that runs alongside the Natchez Trace.  Beautiful, and I didn't even feel like I was likely to be raped - even when I hollered for Joe who was ahead of me and he couldn't hear me.  I actually didn't wrap up my week 8 runs until yesterday.  Oops.  Too much stuff going on.  The last run was 28 minutes, which ended up being around 2.5-2.6 miles.  I was hoping for 2.75.  Dunno if it's the hills or that I'm just slow.  I feared it would be terrible yesterday, but it was actually awesome.  Turns out a good strategy is to run past stuff that is slightly creepy/scary - like the weird dude on the side of the road or that dicey neighborhood.  That's what I did yesterday.  Damn sure wasn't going to stop.  In the end I even felt so good I sprinted.  Sort of.

Tomorrow I start my last week of the C25K program.  Tear.  Three 30 minute runs, and that's it.  Then next week will be the week of my first 5k.  Joe was set to run it with me before he realized his TDY is a week longer than anticipated.  Oh man.  Maybe I was hormonal, but I cried intermittently for the rest of the evening.  (Probably also had to do with old Army wounds too.)  It seemed like Joe was all I had, ya know.  I didn't feel like I should have to ask a friend to stand outside at 8AM for half an hour in December on a Saturday to watch me run.  No, it seems that should be reserved for family.

But seeing how hard I've worked and how upset I was that he isn't going to be there, Joe secretly texted my Army wife BFF about it, and she left me the sweetest message asking if she could come watch me.  I was and am really happy that she doesn't mind coming out, and I knew Joe had a part in it.  He denied it, but after I snatched his phone, he chased me around my aunt's house, catching me before I could check his call/text logs, which pretty much gave me my answer.  I don't mind, though, and in fact I'm glad he did.  Otherwise, I would have probably bailed out of self-pity.  It was really sweet of him to look out for me, and I'm glad that if he's not waiting for me at the Big Dog Jingle finish line, someone else will be who I know, love, and is my (only) Army family here.