Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot

Can't believe it takes all weekend to post this.

I did the Prospect Park Turkey Trot on Thursday. At least, that was my intention. I jogged up to the park and around the lake to get to the check-in area only to find that they'd run out of numbers. They'd even used up some old bibs from a few years before. Seems like everybody wanted to come run.

So I ran as a bandit. I didn't use the water tables (had my own hydration with me as usual) and I didn't cross the finish line, so... not really a bandit I guess. I did use the energy of the crowd to pull me along with them and strove for continuous, steady mileage. The only breaks I took were while waiting for the race to start (did a little stretching) and had to walk about half of the big uphill. And that was it. I left the pack where the course turned east near Pritchard Square, and I just headed home. Mileage came to 8.4 for the day, so I'm feeling really really good about that and about the continuous nature of the run.

However, I didn't run yesterday (Saturday), when I know I should've taken advantage of the nice weather. I need to kick the running back into high gear (at least medium gear) and get in a couple of good ten to twelve mile runs before the Manhattan Half, which will be sometime in January.

Now that the marathon is over, I'm planning some new running goals. One is to finish the 5 Borough Challenge - a half-marathon in all five boroughs. Scheduling has prevented me from doing this before, but I'm making an extra effort this year.

Another goal is to run the NY Marathon again, this time with an actual training schedule, actual speedwork, and run it for time, not just to enjoy the event and finish. To that end, I've taken a close look at the number of qualifying runs I did this year and figure that if I do all three remaining qualifiers in December, plus volunteer for the midnight run December 31st, I should just squeek in my qualifications for NY 2009. This means no more sleeping in on weekends for the next month.

The rest of Thanksgiving Day was productive. Got some bills paid, put up my holiday decorations. I'm not really into decorating for the holidays - I'm kinda just doing it for the neighbors, you know, but I did add some cheap round silver ornaments to the garlands this year. Looks nice. Total investment this year on decoration: $3.

And for you who will spend the rest of the month trying to get your Christmas shopping done: I went out on black Friday to pick up my sister's gift, and then finished up on Saturday at Union Square for my other sister. My shopping is DONE, and as of 6 p.m. today, the gifts are all wrapped and as many of them are ready to ship as I have boxes for.

I wish I could talk about the gifts, but my family reads this blog, so... SELF-CENSORSHIP. Isn't it a bitch?