28, cold aftermath, 3 day wrapup
The big event of the weekend was our 5k at the Festival of Light. The race was HUGE with almost 1300 entries. The start line was a mess, for the first minute or so you are shoulder to shoulder, putzing along, trying to not trip or run into someone. We ran the parade route that was lined with people waiting for the parade. Their cheers were really motivating, pushing us to our fastest first mile ever, below 9 minutes. The fast pace wore Ali out but she pushed on, there was a bit of a mid-race fade but she picked up towards the end. I got a laugh at the turnaround from an old guy that was helping work the race. He was wearing a “Vote for Pedro” t-shirt. As we came to the final straightway I saw the clock at 27 and change. I said something to Ali to try to get her to accelerate so we could get a sub 28 time, she yelled at me that she was pushing already so I shut up. We crossed at 28:15 official time but according to the GPS our real time was 28:05. Ali once again dropped her time by more than 30 seconds, a fantastic effort. After the run they had food and beer as well as the awards, however the awards drug out forever. Ali had outside hopes of getting an award. We checked the results and she finished 14th out of 51 in her age group, a great finish. If we can knock another minute and a half off her time she will be right in the pack of women that could medal in any race. You can see all the results from the race here. When we left we caught glimpses of the parade, it looked like SW Florida’s version of the Macy’s parade, the street was lined 6 or 7 deep everywhere. We were too pooped to consider sticking around to watch it all.
The frost we had last Tuesday morning really made a mess of our landscape. I only hope the damaged plants rebound. I walked around and took pictures of the mess.
The 3 day weekend was otherwise enjoyable. Ali had a PC show on Sunday and Nicki and I went on some errands. Ali is less uptight about me leaving Nicki in the car when I take the party van. I went to my moms to redo my mailbox repair I did a couple weeks ago and picked up some odds and ends for various projects. I hooked up one of those small sets of rabbit ears to the TV in the van so we can get FOX, NBC and ABC clearly now, instead of just ABC. I had both water tractors going for a good portion of the weekend, hoping extensive watering would somehow undo the frost damage, it still looks shitty. On Sunday our old neighbors stopped by, they were in the area and wanted to see their old house. It was good to see them.
On Monday I had off from work, I slammed through a few household chores and then played WoW for the majority of the day. I got an email from our accountant saying we were getting a decent refund this year which is well needed to help offset the huge pool cage bill coming our way.
I have been watching some of the Winter Olympics most nights. I heard the ratings have been dismal. That is too bad, I find it interesting. I just wish they showed curling during the nighttime NBC broadcast, that sport is compelling to me for some reason.