Turkey Day

Its been nice having a few days off from the office. I’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing. I did some leaf raking, some banking stuff, but nothing that’s on the level of a major home improvement project, like my neighbor across the street. This fucking guy, let me tell ya. For the last three months, this guy has been out in his driveway with a saw cutting wood and trim, just about every night of the week. I think he’s re-building the house at this point. Dude, go inside. Relax. Spend time with your kids. Go have sex with your wife. Do something. Enough with the bandsaw. You’re making me look bad. Motivated people annoy me.

I started the holiday out with a nice, sloppy trail run over at Ridley Creek State Park with Tim and some other folks that I know. Kevin, owner of one of the area’s largest residential painting companies and frequent sponsor of alot of the area’s races, just bought a beautiful piece of property adjacent to Ridley Creek State Park, and six of us met over there for a trail run on Wednesday afternoon, in a steady stream of rain. The trails were an absolute mess, and I loved it. Some of the pansies I ran with were trying their best to avoid the sloppy stuff, but I charged right threw that sh*t. That’s how I roll. There’s no room for dresses and high-heels in trail running. Christ, you’re already out there running in the slop – running around puddles isnt really accomplishing anything, so take off the dress and be a man.

I suffered a bit on this run. Our group of six broke up into two groups about midway through, and I ran with the slower group for a bit. Near the end of the run, the course took us back onto the main paved trail that loops around the Park, and I got dropped on one of the hills. I think we were about 6 miles into the run at this point, and the trails killed me. Its a whole different story running 6 miles of trails versus 6 miles on the road, and I havent run trails in ages, and it sure as shit caught up with me. I am still feeling it today.

Thursday, I helped Tim time the Gobble Wobble up in Abington. It’s the biggest run that we have chip-timed to date. Things went off without a hitch. Looks like we might have walked out of there with a few more races under our belt – there were two other area race directors in attendance watching our setup. One of our competitors has had some issues with larger races, and we’re in a prime position to pick up some big events.

I headed over to Brandywine with Mike and Dom for a traditional post- T-day MTB ride. We settled on Brandywine since it was the closest place to all three of us and would have the least amount of road traffic since its not located near any major shopping malls. I gotta say that I aint feeling good on the bike. The last two rides have sucked. Its a combination of me being out of shape and Dom and Mike being much faster than me. I bagged the ride after 50 minutes today while the two of them soldiered on. Add in the fact that I am not a big fan of riding in cold weather. As crazy as it sounds, I would rather ride in the heat. That’s just me. But anyway, it was good to get outside. The forecast had originally called for a really crappy day, but it turned out to be nice – chilly – but nice. The trails were a bit muddy, but not so sloppy that ride was a shit-show. Running through mud is one thing, but riding through mud is awful.

Tomorrow, I have to time a race at St Bernies in Drexel Hill. This is a first-year race, and I think they are expecting a decent sized crowd, but lots of walkers (and luckily I dont have to time the walkers). After that, I am thinking about going for a run or maybe a ride. There was some talk about the group of us getting together again tomorrow afternoon to ride, and if I have the energy level for it, I am in. These races can be a lot of work – I am usually on my feet from the minute I get to the venue up until the minute I leave. Its not unusual for me to get home and pass out.