Let the games begin!

I am officially almost ready for the holiday season.
The artificial pre-lit Christmas tree is assembled and decorated.

Low flying planes can now maneuver safely at night with the aid of the lamination from our decorated house.

I’m already getting annoyed with radio stations playing ‘only’ Christmas music.

Lastly, I have yet decided on any gift to but for anyone. Yes, let the games begin.

My string of consecutive days of exercise ended on Thanksgiving but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to exercise. I volunteered for our local Turkey trot 10K and had a blast.

Now I’ve been told that I have a large and loud personality, so to be given a megaphone for crowd control was a gift from the gods to me.

I could tell the same joke over and over and for every new group of runners that approached, it was new and fresh. I was in heaven.

I am still in awe whenever someone says that I help make the event that much better just by my presence. So if you have the chance to help out at a race, please do. It’s so worthwhile and events can never have too many volunteers.

After the race it was off to the annual Thanksgiving game at Ford Field to watch my Green Bay Packers defeat the Detroit Lions. The number of Packer fans that attended the game surprised me.

On the running front, I’ve been able to get in some short runs without any significant knee pain but I’m not going to get crazy just yet. I’ve also put the bike on the trainer and actually rode for over an hour.

Since I’ll be running in the snow, sleet and colder temps, I’m thinking of purchasing a Trail running shoe. My feet get really cold on the longer runs and I’m thinking the trail shoes would be better insulated, any thoughts out there?

I've Been Tagged

Thanks to Runner Gal Leana, I’ve been tagged and now I have to come up with five random/weird facts about myself. I could probably come up with a few more but rules are rules, so here are my Top Five Random facts:

I competed in a ‘Beer Case Race’, where you see who can finish a case of beer in the shortest amount of time. This may not sound strange to do in your twenties but I competed as a Grand Master a few years ago and was in first places for a brief time (after 16 beers). I didn’t complete the race due to my inability to stand up.
I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was eighteen years old. I never had a need to ride anywhere that wasn’t walking distance. Bikes weren’t seen as ‘cool’ in the neighborhood. This is probably why I still have that fear of my first real fall off the bike!
My second toe goes over the big toe, giving the appearance of my toes looking like you’re crossing your fingers. It’s not something that will get me on David Letterman but it’s good knowing I have something crossed at all times.
I remember black and white television, the opening episode of Gilligan’s Island (it was pre-empted by a speech from then Governor Romney) and growing up with one telephone for the entire house.
In my twenties, I followed a young lady out to California for a two week vacation without a place to stay. Kind of spur of the moment thing or maybe just a summer fling! It wasn’t one of those hitchhiking trips but a plane ride and bus to nowhere. Fortunately, she did have an apartment with a couch.

Okay, let's get down to business, here are The Rules:
Link to your tagger, and post these rules on your blog.
Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by their names and links to their blogs.
Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.

Now the next step is for me to tag five fellow bloggers and list their names and links:

Sonia – Solo Running Chick
Bob – Running Part Deux
Al – On Eagles WIngs
Geology Diva (Who is toooo busy for this)
MotownRunnerGirl – (I think she’s done this before)

New Bloggers

I’m going to attempt to get my TNT team members to start blogging about their upcoming experiences. I’ve got a couple of past team members started, so we’ll see who jumps aboard the blogging express. I’ll keep you guys posted.

The Team

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the 2008 TNT spring team!

We had a great training run even though the sun didn’t shine down upon us. It will be interesting to see the improvements five months from now!

Everyone came with a great attitude and they’re excited about the journey that they have chosen.

No one got lost and there were no injuries to report, Yay!

Losers

I just can’t pick losers!

Sonia asked about my fantasy Biggest Loser team and she was correct in her assumption of no news meaning being in last place!

Okay I’m in last place, there I said it.

I truly thought that my original team would hang in there and lose tons of weight, but alas it ain’t happening.

I still have two players in the game but they aren’t breaking any records in weight lost.

I think that I’m mathematically eliminated unless one of my team members loses a body part.

I was glad to see Amy get booted off also.

I’ll be watching the show just for entertainment purposes only. I still have football, Go Packers!

Spring Team 2008

I have a spring team!

I just received my official roster for the spring Team in Training team and I am getting geeked.

Is this how teachers feel at the start of their school year?

It will be fun to put faces to some of these names at Kickoff tonight.

Right now there are sixteen members of the run team and eight walkers. We still have a couple of weeks of meeting to add to that.

Bus Blogging

Today the temperature is supposed to climb to the lower sixties, which means I had to get out and enjoy it at lunch. This worked out great since the Downtown Runners are heading west to Plymouth to run this evening, so Sandy and I will skip tonight’s run and enjoy a Tuesday at home.

I purposely sought out someone that would run a little slower, since I’m still doing my top-secret undercover training. I was able to find one of my co-workers that wanted to have an easy day. With the exception of the first half-mile, my body started to loosen up and I didn’t feel any out of the norm aches. How long do you have to keep your fingers crossed for it to take hold?

I was also wondering when and where do most bloggers in Blogland do their blogging? I personally hate turning on the PC when I get home from work, so most of my blogging is done at work, but today it was done on the bus commuting home.

Tomorrow is Kickoff for the Spring Team in training season and it’s always exciting to get started. Saturday is the first group training run and I can’t wait to see all of those smiling faces in near-freezing temperatures. I’m sure that I be collecting clothing from the slightly overdressed.

Okay my stop is coming up, see you on the road.

Happy Feet Again

Well it is Happy Feet time again. I was able to run 5.36 miles today with the help of a few hundred friends.

I ran in the Big Bird 10k today and my knee actually felt okay at points of the race.

I didn’t try and go out racing, so it was different to be really in the back of the pack. I just wanted to get in my ‘long’ run!

This race goes over I-696 twice, which wasn’t usually isn’t an issue but the downhill portion was unforgiving on the knees.

I think I was a little annoying to a few people, since I chatted the entire time I was running.

I even heard the ‘..you have too much energy to be running this slow’!

Of course once I was done my knee grew in size but there wasn’t any sufficient pain.

The other major point is that I even ran on Saturday, so that’s two consecutive days of running.

Yay!

Pity Party Time

Everyone keeps telling me that my conditioning will return, but when?

I want to run like the wind…………

The one thing that distance running does, is instill some patience into you. I need to find my patience and just remember to put one foot in front of the other. I appreciate running more now since I wasn’t able to do it for an extended period of time.

I think running with the Downtown Runners made me want to go faster, since everyone was dashing pass me at light-speed.

I wanted to register for the ‘Big Bird’ run but why? I can’t sustain a pace for any period of time for s*it.

If you can’t tell already, I’m having a Pity Party (Thanks Solo Running Chick), it must be contagious!

I think that I’ll be on the sidelines once again cheering and supporting the runners that I know.

I am surprised that people come up to me and tell me how appreciative they were to see me cheering and yelling for them at an event. Don’t they realize that I have a cooler full of beer next to me?

I just found out that I’ll be on the course of the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot, so I’m hoping for warm weather. This race has been growing in participation over the past few years, so the need for more volunteers is really becoming apparent. The course is a semi out-and-back, with a few streets in need of human delimiters, which will be my job.

I’m so important!

Okay, the party is over and I’ll get my butt back on track.

No No No

No knee pain, no speed, no sweat.

I’m running but it isn’t pretty. I went to the school track and ran my circles. I was lucky to stay ahead of the senior citizen walkers. I wore my heart rate monitor to see just how bad of shape I’m in.

Can you believe that another runner dies while running a marathon? I also read the Sports Illustrated article about Alberto Salazar having his heart attack. I’m the type that reads something like that and starts to get chest pains. Now I have to make it a point to run with my Road-ID attached to my shoe, someone has to identify the body.

Congratulations to Brian Sell on making the U.S. Olympic team for the marathon. It didn’t look as though he was having fun the last portion of the race.

Also how can Paula Radcliffe win the NYC marathon after giving birth to a baby and I’m struggling after my time off? I hate those elite athletes!

The plan for this week is to see if my body can handle consecutive days of running. Remember, I’m only doing a couple of miles each day.

The Green Bay Packers win another game to stay in first place ahead of those surging Detroit Lions. What in the world is going on?