Thanksgiving Week

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off work this week so I got a little mini vacation. The weather was horrible most of the day but I got a lot of things done

Monday:

Work and Running.

Tuesday:

I started the day with a ten mile run that went really well.

In the afternoon I did some birding with my brother and dad. The weather wasn’t that great but it was fun.

  

 

 

I also fooled around with camera and took a lot of pictures.

Wednesday:

More running and doing some shopping. I also made a stop by Sugarloaf Mountain Winery which I pass on a lot of my bike ride and has some wines that I enjoy.

Thursday:

Turkey day. I did some running the morning. I originally planned on during a turkey trot but because the weather looked bad and legs felt tired I decided against it and just did my scheduled track workout instead. And judging by the disaster that was my last two intervals it was probably a good idea I didn’t do the race.

After running I made some pancakes and then had a nice Thanksgiving meal with family.

Friday:

More running in the morning. I don’t like shopping the day after Thanksgiving but I do like the deals so this year I decided I would try to find something online. I wanted to get a Kitchen Aid mixer and Amazon.com was having a deal that started at 1 pm so I waited around during the middle of the day for the offer to start. The clock turned over to 1 and I took 5 seconds to comprehend that it was a good price and clicked “add to cart”. I got a message of “waiting in virtual line”, it turns out those 5 seconds were 4 to long because it was sold out by the time my request went through.

All was not lost because Kohl’s was having a good deal with some extra % off. It was a quick drive there and was surprised by the lack of crowd. I found out this was because the “door buster” deals only lasted till 1 pm, but I still managed to get myself the “door buster” deal I wanted so I was happy with that and I picked up a deal on a couple other things as well. 

Saturday:

I went running in the morning again and did some more shopping in the middle of the day. All the afternoon football games sucked so  I decided to make some “Chicago-style Deep Dish Pizza” before the Georgia Tech / Georgia game. And it came out delicious!!!

I even took the time to make it “homemade”. I made it with chicken breast, onions, and green peppers.

 

I even made the dough from scratch. (Yes that is olive oil in the bottom. I used way to much to coat the bowl and came back ten minutes later to find the dough in a puddle of olive oil I promptly dumped out.)

 

And made the sauce at home as well. 

Did I mention it was delicious?

It wasn’t perfect though, the sauce came out way to runny. I think this was because I put the tomato in the food processor for too long. The next time I would also let the dough sit longer and probably add some veggies to the toppings.

Sunday:

I defeated my nemesis, the Michelin Krylion bike tire. Since I have been getting a lot of flat tires on my bike rides I decided it was time to go with a new tire for the winter.

It took me over a week to get these tires on the rim. Getting the last part of the tire over the rim was a complete pain in the ass. I was working at it so long I got blisters all over my hands. These tires are notorious for being tough to put on but this was ridiculous. I think part of the problem was leaving them out in the garage where it was cold which probably made the rubber tougher to get over so I left them inside overnight but one of the vents and that seemed to do the trick since I was able to get them all set up today.

Candy Cane City 5km Race

I finally got under 21 minutes for a 5 km race. There’s not really much you can write about for a 5 km race. You run fast and try to keeping running that fast the whole time which you can see in the pace and heart rate charts of the race.

 

Prerace:

Winter is getting here, there was a little bit of frost hanging around this morning

Just finishing my warm-up:

Obviously I wasn’t very nervous before the race:

The only thing of note from the race was I went out at a fast pace but that was by design. The course is very narrow at the start and I didn’t want to boxed in and forced to weave through people so I went out fast and then settled into my pace.

This pictures illustrates what I am talking about.

And this is why I wanted to be up at the front so I didn’t have to run through this:

And here are some more race pictures:

 

I finished with a time right around 20:40 which is a big PR for me, and about a 6:38 min/mile pace and way under 21 minutes. I am excited because I’m seeing results from the run focus I have been doing with my training the last few weeks. The way things are going I think getting close to a 20 minute 5 km at a Thanksgiving race is definitely doable.

I think this post race picture does a good job of explaining what it feels like at the end of a 5 km race.

I went biking later in the afternoon and got ANOTHER flat tire. That’s 3 flat tires in my last four rides after only have one flat tire in two years of riding. 

Breeders Cup

The Breeders Cup is this weekend at Santa Anita, I’m very excited.

After I run my 5k race tomorrow morning I might make a stop on the way home and place some bets on the Breeders Cup Classic and Turf Race that take place at the end of the day.

If you aren’t familiar with the horse racing this weekend of races is a big deal. The triple crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont) that takes place in the spring is a series of races for three year olds and are the most well know races but the Breeders Cup is just as big of a deal. It’s two days of horse racing, unlike the triple crown which focuses on a single race the Breeders Cup spans ever class of horse racing with some of the biggest purses of the year, only one race has a purse less then $1 million.