And ... I'm Back

I returned from Thanksgiving holidays to what I'll call our Hell Week at work. Friday was our budget presentation where we review our 2008 plans and budget with the Houston members of our division. Tradition holds that the presentation is high level and jovial, and that we have some kind of party to go along with it. Enter, the 2007 Chili Cookoff Fall Festival!

Work groups could build booths, that we placed in our garage, where they would serve chili and/or desserts movie, have some kind of activity, and hold to some sort of movie theme. My group had a booth, and we also had to prepare the budget presentation that was held before the chili cookoff. Our boss let us shoot a bunch of movies (to hold to the movie theme) for the presentation, and we admittedly had a great time doing that. However, that and the booth prep just proved to be a lot of work. It was good though, I don't mind the extra work/stress for something like this. I think the presentation went well, and our booth seemed popular; we got second place according the judges and second in the "people's choice" award. We lost the judges contest to the booth with cross dressers : That let's you know the way we like to party in my division.

As for running, I worked in very little Thanksgiving week, including a miss of my nine mile run over the weekend. There have been a few 3 to 4 mile runs here and there, but I've been "tapering" quite hard over the past two weeks.

Today was our HoustonFIT 30K run. The run went fairly well. I wanted to stay with the newly reformed Yellow Blob (Atwell, Jon, Melissa, Lynette being the main members, with others joining/leaving throughout the run) as I felt the peer pressure would keep me going. That turned out to be a good plan, as the segment from 9 to 12 miles was starting to wear on me, but I was able to just stay shoulder to shoulder with the others and keep chugging. That continued to work for most of the next 2.5 miles, though somewhere in there, I had to drop my pace because my legs were clearly filling up with acid (ohh, the burning). The final 3.5 miles weren't my best speed wise, but I did stay in control of myself (no sudden "I can't run anymore" episodes). Had the weather been a bit cooler, I think it would have been an even greater run.

Health wise, my left ankle hurt a bit at the end (just like at the 25K), but never so much that I couldn't keep going. My arches seem fine now .... or at least for today ... go figure.

A decision on Sunmart to come. I don't know that I'm actually procrastinating as much as taking advantage of the fact that I can now wait and see what the weather will do. :) That's my story at least ...