Turkey Trotting & Reindeer Running

This foot stride is all wrong. I know, I'm a pro now.

This post is a long time overdue. I know everyone has been really swept up in my training for the Princess half-marathon by the nones of emails I received, so here's a little more to keep you going.


I had said a while ago that I had planned on doing a few races to kind of feel them out, see how I do under pressure. So I was going to do the Turkey Trot, Reindeer Run, and then something else local in the new year. So let me give you a long-winded version of each right now! 


The Turkey Trot is, as always, on Thanksgiving Day. The catch was that we were not going to be home for Thanksgiving, we were heading down south to spend it with Bobby's parents, which meant I had to find a race in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Both cities had one, and I could sign up that morning, so we planned on doing the Ft. Lauderdale race. We had a group of four or possibly five of us going, and we were going to start the day off right! Or not.

Sorry dude, we're still eating you.

After our group narrowed down to just me & Bobby, we decided to skip the Turkey Trot and just run three miles around his parent's neighborhood. So Thanksgiving morning, we got up and took off about 7:30 and here is what I learned from that run:

Aw, girl look at that body...

1. Running on an empty stomach was like running your car on fumes. The problem is that I don't eat as soon as I get up so now if I have a morning run, I have to get up about an hour and a half early and eat a cardboard tasting Luna bar to give me some energy. But I swear that around mile two I looked and sounded like a balloon deflating. Not good.

....I work out! Not really. This is all I do.

2. Always carry extra hair things! My new stay-put elastics were not big enough for my hair and I ended up busting it ten minutes into the run so I had to run with my hair down. It actually was a lot cooler but I felt like a real dumbass with my hair flying around.

Uh oh, I gots the Turkey Trots!

The best part about that weekend was that Bobby and I caught a 24 hr bug the next day and emptied our entire body of any and all Thanksgiving dinner we had ingested. As Bobby said, it was our own version of the Turkey Trot! I think of it as a way to stay slim during the holidays.

Moving on to the Reindeer Run! This was a 5K in Orlando that ran through Sea World and it was going to be the first and possibly only time Jen and I would be able to run together so at the beginning of December, I headed over on a Friday night to get ready for our early morning run. And by get ready, I primarily ate two pounds of chips and dip, homemade pizza, and a gallon of white wine. So despite the carefully planned out pre-run diet,  the next morning I wasn't exactly jumping out of bed at 5:30. What can I say, I can't resist Jen's cooking or the temptation to hang out with Matt & Jen- it happens exactly never so I wanted to take advantage of it! But anyway, I got dressed in my yoga pants and top and we headed out.

Those awesome green shirts look good on everybody! Just replace the word everybody with nobody.           Except us, of course.

I decided to try Jen's Honey Stingers gel that morning and I didn't drink anything pre-run, which might have been a mistake. I was on a roll! I was okay about a mile into the run, but it was hot out and I was wearing black pants and the honey stinger was not sitting too well. And let me mention here that Jen has taken to running like a racehorse to a track, so I'm pretty sure she would have breezed right through this if it hadn't been for me. So I think maybe some water will help and great, there's a water station up ahead, thank god! I take a cup and chug it.


It made it immediately worse. If I was only a little nauseous before, I was on the cusp of barfing now. We walked for a little while and Jen was pointing out all the cool stuff in Sea World and I'm pretty sure I answered in one word grunts. In other words, I was fantastic company.


We walk/jogged the rest of the way and called it a day, but here are the lessons I learned from that day:


1. Stop wearing pants in the blazing sun. Jen actually gave me that tip that would have been obvious to everyone else but had to be pointed out to me. After that run, I bought three pairs of running shorts and haven't looked back since. If I'm going to pass out, it's going to be from being drunk, not overheating.

2. Drink some f'ing water, dumbass. And I'm talking to myself here. I would think that would be instinctual but apparently not with me. Like I said before, common sense is not my forte. 

So this brings us to January. I hadn't signed up for any more runs before the Princess half but we had started training with the running club and my miles were slowly increasing. Then came the whammy: my friend Helen and her running partner couldn't make it to the Disney half-marathon this coming up weekend, so would I like to take her place? Hmmmmm