A Thankfulgiving Day

Today is a day to be grateful and count those small incurious details that our lives have been blessed with. Okay so it should technically be everyday but I think it serves as a reminder or reflection time since sometimes in our busy lives we forget. So to everyone and everything out there...Thank You...because you can never say it enough times.

That's my little turn inside thought for the day, which in turn was quite blessed and I am quite thankful for. It all started with a tradition that I started 4 years ago, a turkey trot in Andover called the Feaster Five. I don't know what exactly spurred this "tradition", it was before Greater Boston so I wasn't super serious about my racing again, but still continue on. I still recall that first race. I geared up, planted myself in the middle of the 7000+ trotters, and did not finish well in any sense. And here I stand 4 races later and you'd never know it was me running that first race. Each consecutive year after that disastrous race I have improved by leaps, all time wise. This year was no exception. I shaved approximately 50 sec off of my time from last year, almost breaking my 5K PR. Though that was not the best improvement or proudest that I made in this race. It was my mile splits. I have never in any of my years racing ever ran an even split race, ever, especially not a 5K. This would be my first. Funny thing is I didn't realize it until hours later when I went to recall my mile times. I clocked my first mile in 6:26, the second was 6:27, my third 1.1miles was 7:12 (which with the math boils down to a 6:30ish 3rd mile). I definitely have to add that to one of the best/proudest racing moments of my career. It's such a great feeling when your training finally shines, if even for the smallest moment, through.

After that early morning jolt instead of heading up to NH to my parents house like I normally do, I went back home. Here was another shining moment of the day-I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner for my family at my house in Boston. Might I add it turned out wonderfully too. A fabulous day spent with my mom, dad and sisters...and the oven.

Selective Memory?

I ponder a simple question that came to me yesterday as I lugged up Summit Hill for a continuous hill workout. I know before I'm going to start this workout that it's going to hurt. It hurt the last time I did it. Yet somehow in the 1.43 mile warmup to the hill I forget that there's going to be any pain involved and trot up the massive hill. That is of course until I reach just past where we stop for sprint hills and the intense burning from lactic acid starts to creep in. Then all of the sudden that memory comes back to the previous times of doing this workout. It's quite painful! How do you forget something so vivid so quickly?