Pooped from the party

So after work I had to rush home, let out the dogs and feed them before driving back towards Naples to attend our running club Christmas party.  The party was scheduled to start at 6:30 and I assumed I would be late.  Surprisingly I pulled in only a few minutes late.

I was actually relatively early, the mass of people didn’t show up until closer to 7, including Ali who got held up at work.  A line was quickly developing out the door as each person had to be checked against a list of people that paid and then handed a couple free drink tickets.  We only had one person checking these people in.

My race experiences make me hate seeing long lines so I grabbed a second list and started checking people in as well to expedite the process.  After about 10 minutes the line had dissolved.

So I wasted no time using up my two drink tickets, when Ali arrived I used one of hers as well.  I drink so rarely that when I do actually do it I go pretty hard, sometimes stupidly so. My drink of choice last night was Budweiser from the tap.

Early on I got involved in a very lengthy conversation with a woman that also did the Tough Mudder this past weekend on Sunday.  We compared notes on the event.  We both agreed the Chernobyl Jacuzzi was the most brutal of all 25 obstacles.

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur.  I know many people were quite surprised to see that when you add alcohol to me I suddenly become dramatically more talkative and outgoing.  I know I got a bunch of hugs, there was lots of laughing, smiling, pictures and even some dancing by yours truly which is a truly rare occurrence.

I had my Tough Mudder headband in my pocket.  It was requested that I bring it. It was passed around the party while various people tried it on.  The act of allowing a non-Mudder to wear the epic orange  headband may be viewed as sacrilegious  to Mudder purists but I didn’t mind.  It made for some funny pictures for sure.

We pretty much closed out the party, which was supposed to officially end at 10:30.  We wound up not leaving until almost midnight.

As expected I felt like a zombie this morning.  In fact when the 5:30 alarm went off I immediately turned it off and went back to sleep without hesitation.  I got up at 7 and let my boss know I was running late which she didn’t care about.

It was a great party, probably the most fun I have had at any running club social event.

This will likely be the last words you see from me for quite awhile since we will be flying up to NYC on Sunday for what should be a fantastic winter mini-vacation.  We have a TON of to things we want to do while we are up there.

Just to make things more challenging we have a race to time tomorrow as well.

If you want to see all of the pictures I have from the party, go here.