Archives December 2013

I left work mid-afternoon on Wednesday to head over to the running store where packet pick up for the Thanksgiving race was going on.  I wanted to get a head start on the mountain of entry forms that I knew would be waiting for me.  I am glad I did.  I processed a huge stack of paper while I was there. When I got home I had another long list of manual changes to be made to accommodate the last minute online entries that came to the store to get their race packet as well.  Between all of that data work and the normal equipment prep I had to do I was still doing race activities as 10PM drew near, later than I would prefer.

To make matters worse I developed some sort of gastrointestinal issue Wednesday night that had me visiting the bathroom multiple times.  I couldn’t believe the incredibly poor timing.  It was the last thing I needed to deal with the night before the largest race I ever timed.  When I woke up the next morning at 3AM the fun persisted.  Before leaving the house at 4AM I was back in the bathroom another three times.  I was feeling lethargic and wiped out from the incidents. I had nightmare scenarios running through my head where the race would be ready to start and I would be stuck in some port-a-potty.  Thank goodness I was empty enough that I was able to get through the event without having to assume the seated position.

I had extra equipment for the race including an extra timing box and additional signage. I wound up having to take the party van to get all of it in one vehicle.  As I expected we were the first ones on the race site, pulling onto 5th Ave somewhere around 4:40 although others from our dedicated race crew showed up only a few minutes later.  After dropping off my timing equipment at the start and finish lines I headed to the registration area where we had to set up for the 2500 plus people that were going to be descending on the park shortly.

We split apart the registration lines more so than normal to accommodate the huge numbers.  For the most part the plan seemed to work well.  We were fortunate that somewhere around 2/3 of the pre-registered people picked up their race packets early.  The pre-race scene was loosely organized chaos which is pretty much all you can ask for.

The pre-race scene was also COLD. I was freezing my ass off despite wearing a t-shirt, long sleeve t-shirt, sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.  The temps right around 50 felt like arctic conditions to my thoroughly Florida acclimated body.

Getting the starting line mats across the street was quite the challenge with 4000 feet walking towards/across them at the same time.  Thankfully some people helped steer the mass of humanity around me so I could get them down without being trampled.

The race started and the massive pack of runners/walkers slowly moved forward as they squeezed to go over the 10 meter wide starting mats.  I had to wait at the start line a good 3 minutes for all of the bodies to cross over.  This, along with the location of the finish line some 4 blocks away was problematic.

I had to haul ass to the finish line with a laptop in my arms.  Since this was only a 5K race I had precious little time to get the finish line up and running.  This situation was made worse by the fact that there were some VERY fast runners in the event.  The winner covered the 5K in a blistering 15:39.  I got the finish line totally up with about 2-3 minutes to spare, it was a little close for comfort.

Cindy had a unique part in the race, she was the mascot, complete with a turkey costume.  It is a role she was clearly destined to play, she did a great job interacting with the race participants, and especially the kids, in a way that added a lot of fun to the event.

I had some challenges to overcome with timing the race.  At one point when around 2000 people had already crossed the finish line my software that interacts with the timing boxes stopped responding.  I had to kill the processes and quickly recover the missing times through alternate methods.  I also had another weird issue where I only had start times for a portion of the runners which I corrected later at home.

All in all the race went well.  We had some detail items that were not handled as they should have been but part of that was related to the huge and unexpected sure of participation.  The race exceeded all of our expectations.  It was almost 11 pm by the time Cindy and I got back to the house.  After unloading the van we had to jump immediately into Thanksgiving prep.  By the time Cindy’s daughter and my mom pulled in the driveway we were still in the midst of it all.  Cindy’s mom showed up maybe 45 minutes later.

This was the first time my mom had met Cindy’s mom and daughter but it was not a big deal, everyone seemed to get along just fine.  Cindy had prepared an amazing assortment of food complimented by mom’s stellar pineapple casserole dish which is fantastic.  Everyone enjoyed the meal. It was the largest number of people I have had around the dining room table (5 including me) in quite a long time.

Everyone hung out for awhile after the meal which was nice.   They all rolled out around the same time mid-afternoon.  After they did I spent a lot of time digging into race related work that I didn’t get to attend to before everyone showed up. With my GI issues and 3AM alarm that morning I was sure my day at some point would include a nap however somehow that time just did not present itself.  By the time bedtime hit I was thoroughly and completely exhausted.

On Friday I made it a goal to enjoy myself.  I needed a day to recover from the large amounts of race related stress and anxiety that had been my shadow for the prior week.  I had a number of errands to run and I took the SSR out to do them.  The weather was glorious for top down driving.  I checked out a handful of retail outlets just to say I mildly participated in Black Friday.  By the time I walked in the doors mid-morning the hoopla had long since died since so many places now start the madness Thanksgiving evening.

When I got back to the house I attended to a number of home chores, trying to thin the load for the weekend since I wanted to get the Xmas decorations in place on Saturday.

On Saturday morning I got up early to do the club run, it was the first running I had done since the Tough Mudder, believe it or not.  I did 10k at a 9 minute mile pace, plenty for me since I am far from tip top endurance training shape.  I physically felt ok after the run but the rest of the weekend I suffered from swelling in my always troublesome right knee.

This year I put more effort into the outdoor Xmas lights.  In recent years I really didn’t feel like putting much effort into the process, simply wrapping the two front palms and stringing the rest of the lights unimaginatively along the front fence line.   This year I added the other four cabbage palms in the front yard to the lighted category, something I last did when the trees were much shorter.  I barely had enough LED lights to do all of it.

In addition I had my cool multi-color LED snowman head stakes AND a 7 foot INFLATABLE snowman that was anchored to the large oak tree in the yard.  I need to take some more pictures of everything but here is a pretty one that Cindy took.  When paired up with the fake Xmas tree in the dining room window, I am pretty pleased with the state of my 2013 Xmas decorations.

On Saturday night we saw Homefront, a flick whose screenplay was written by Sylvester Stallone and whose cast included the likes of Jason Statham, James Franco, Winonna Ryder and Kate Bosworth.  I figured the combination should make for a decent movie. Well I couldn’t really tell you.

I knew I was sleepy going into the movie but thought I would be ok.  Instead I wound up dozing off repeatedly, so much so I had to ask Cindy if the movie was good or not although I had already formed a “not” opinion based on what I did see.  She confirmed the movie was not great, only garnishing a C or C+ rating.  It would be a middle of the road Netflix rental, I don’t recommend seeing it in a theater.

My Sunday was very laid back.  We had ideas of doing a bike ride but it was very foggy, cool and damp outside so we shelved it.  Instead I spent a good portion of morning working on the computer on several different projects.  I fired up the Eagles game and was witness to almost a carbon copy of last weeks game.  Once again the Eagles built up a sizable second half lead (24-7), and once again they had to struggle to hold on at the end, winning the game 24-21.

I should be glad that the Eagles are at least winning these games instead of focusing on how they are collapsing at the end of them.  I guess I am just preparing myself for the ultimate collapse which I know is inevitable. My fantasy team kicked some major ass, currently sitting at 150 points with Marshawn Lynch yet to play tonight.

Last night we watch Last Stand which I think was the first movie Arnold did after he left the governors office.  The movie was an odd and at times disturbing mix of humor and unnecessary gore.  It was mildly entertaining and I never get tired of watching Arnold beat up bad guys, even well into his 60’s.  I’d give it a B.

Nicki and Sadie have been enjoying their time out at the house.  Nicki especially seems to be having fun.  She has been more playful and active  than I can remember her being in quite a long time.

I still am not sleeping well.  It’s going on two weeks now.