Category Archives: Running

Thanksgiving Day

I woke up early on Thanksgiving to do the Chesterfield 11th Annual Turkey Trot (5k race).  The race started at 8:30 am so I wanted to get there in plenty of time.

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It was pretty cold, so I wore my new workout skirt (ha!) and a long sleeve tee I bought myself in honor of the upcoming Phoenix Half-marathon.

I was cold and tired, and I should have wore a hat or something over my ears!  By the time the race started, my ears were freezing.  In any case, I ran pretty well—it was a crowded course and pretty boring (around a mall), but I kept going pretty well.  I actually thought I would break my last time, but I guess due to the cold and drizzle I wasn’t moving as fast as I thought.  My next race won’t be until mid-December so I’ll have a bit more time in between to train.  And then nothing until the half-marathon in Phoenix, yay!

Results: 32:17, 1269 of 2347, 76 of 172 in my age group (30-34)

Okay, race done, off to eat!

The night before I made my pies and upside down cake.

 

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Pumpkin Pie, Sour Cream Apple Pie, and Cranberry Upside-down Cake.

It was raining pretty hard when it was time to load up the car, so that was annoying.  We headed over to our friends’ house (Laura and Jon) around 11 am.  Chris was making the turkey.

The menu:

Turkey and Gravy

Classic Cranberry Sauce

Grand Marnier Cranberry Relish

Potato Fennel Gratin

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Spicy Cornbread Stuffing

Parmesan Broccoli

Mustard Cauliflower with Lemon Butter

Maple Roasted Squash

Martha’s Mac and Cheese

 

Yes.  It was ridiculous!  Also, of course, appetizers, dessert, and wine.  The rest of the people came over around 3:00, and we probably ate dinner at 5:30 or so.  The food was fantastic!  (My friend Laura is a tremendous cook).

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A sampling of the day’s activities, and my dinner plate.  We cooked, played wii, ate, and talked.  Some people watched football (I did not.)

It also snowed a bit in the afternoon!  Our first snow of the season.  Very pretty!

Okay, one last picture of the pies…and a topping for the pies…

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I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!  It was great to spend the day with good friends.  I am thankful to have so many wonderful people in my life!

Girls on the Run Race: 11/13/10

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I wasn’t planning to do another race until Thanksgiving, but a little over a week ago I got an email about the Girls on the run 5k in Forest Park and I couldn’t help myself…I signed up.  Then I thought it was going to be cold and rainy and considered chickening out.  In fact, even the morning of, when my alarm went off, I thought…hmmm…I’m not meeting anyone, I could just turn over and go back to sleep.  But I would feel super lame them, so I got up and put on my clothes and got going. 

So, yes, this was my first all-alone race.  Well, me and about 3500 other people.  The Girls on the run is a program for young girls where they run and also do community service (I learned a bit about it when I was there!).  I would almost consider volunteering, but I have enough on my plate (not to mention that much of what I do is practically volunteer work since the pay is so little), plus I feel that I give a lot to young children through my work (I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past few days!).  In any case, this race was the culmination of the hard work for lots of groups of girls.  I knew it would be crowded and I knew it would be the first race for many girls, so I knew I would have to have patience.  However, I’m pretty good with that sort of thing (again, from my teaching), so I just figured I possibly wouldn’t beat my last time.

I picked up the race packet on Thursday from Big River Running.  It was so warm that day that the table for pickup was comfortably set up outside.  I don’t run as well in warm weather, so I was really hoping it cooled off.  The forecast said it would, but also predicted rain, which I was not looking forward to (and again, made me learn towards chickening out).

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Contents of the race packet.  I finally wised up and ordered a “small” t shirt which fits pretty well.  I do not consider myself a “small” person so I feel badly for actual “small” people who must constantly be swimming in their clothes.  The red tag is for the timing—you wrap it around your shoelaces.  The water bottle was a nice touch!  Mike is constantly bugging me to drink more water, so more water bottles are a good thing.  I

Okay, so back to Saturday morning.  I woke up, ate breakfast, and went.  I planned to get there early in case of crowds, and sat in my car for a bit, drank coffee, and read until it was closer to race time.  This was a big race—3500 or so people!  Considering my last two 5ks were between 200 and 400 people, that’s quite a lot.  My goal was simply to run the whole thing (with the usual water table exception). 

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A couple different shots of the starting line up.  The balloons were at the starting line.  It was pretty windy (cold) so I hung back near a bit of shelter until it was truly time to line up.  I thought I would feel weird being alone and not knowing anybody (you know, like people would point and laugh or something) but I felt great, and noticed there were several other people in my position.  (Maybe next time I will say hi to them…or not…).  I also knew that Chris, though he wanted to sleep in, would be proud of me for finishing, so that helped!

Finally we got going! It took a little to cross the starting line, but then we were running.  The race was VERY crowded, but that was actually pretty fun.  I had to weave around a lot, and people were weaving around me as well, but it was great fun to run with so many others!  The course was much hillier than I was used to so I tried to go very slow up the hills.  The water station was VERY slow, as several people got completely in the way, stopped, stood there, etc, but I stayed patient and figured my time was just going to be pretty slow.  I got moving again though!  Mile 2 was the toughest as far as being tired and feeling like we were just running completely uphill (maybe we were).  I figured that the 3rd mile HAD to be more downhill, and I was correct.  I picked up some speed, and finally the end was in sight.  I pushed toward the finish line with all I had in me, and noticed that the time was just past 33:00..which meant I would have another personal record (or pr, as the “cool kids” call it.)  I was completely spent and actually thought I might throw up.

The best part of the race was that they had the water/food lined up RIGHT after the finish, no delirious wandering around for it.  I downed some water and some “vitamin water”, and sat down.

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You can see I was super tired.  I thought I was going to die, but after a few minutes I felt better!  Then I went to my car and drove home.

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What’s with all the 5k’s giving out medals? 

The times/placement went up later in the day:

My time: 32:03 (10:19 mile pace, wow!)

Place: 612 out of 3254

Not bad!  I am glad to be improving all the time Smile

Weekend Recap part 1

I’m going to go out of order a bit (and save my race for later).  Yesterday I played two weddings.  The first was at St. Cecilia’s Church in South City.  It is a beautiful church, over 100 years old.  Evidently the area it is in used to be a German area and is now Hispanic.  The inside of the church is very shiny and ornate.  It’s really amazing what people used to build for their churches…it must have cost so much money!

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Just a few pictures of the inside.  If you visit the website there are a few more.  I didn’t have my good camera with me, and the lighting was bad.  Besides which, I am not a great photographer!

Wedding number two was at the City Museum.  If you are from St. Louis, you have probably been to the City Museum.  I went in June with a good friend and her boyfriend who were visiting.  It is a crazy place!  The whole building is a huge playground with things to climb into, over, and through.  It’s difficult to describe in a way that would do it justice. However, that sounds like a strange place for a wedding, right?  Well, they have a large room that is nice for weddings…except it was super loud where we were due to all the children outside the room, running around and screaming.  We were in the architecture room.  I didn’t take any photos yesterday, but here is one from my previous visit.

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The building in the background is the City Museum.  We could see this plane out the window from where we were playing, so that gives you an idea.

After playing two weddings, it was time to eat dinner and then attend the Symphony Concert.  Last night’s program was Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Leila Josefowicz playing Thomas Ades Violin Concerto, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade.   I really enjoyed the concert!  I usually don’t love new pieces, but I really loved the Concerto (and she played it fantastically, which I am sure helped immensely).  We then hung out with a few friends for a few hours and got to bed very late.

Now it’s time for my long run of the day—6 miles is on the docket for today Smile

Time to relax/new clothes

I’ve been busy today–a race and two weddings. Now it’s time to relax, attend a symphony concert, and then over to a friend’s house to hang out. My race went great–I will write more about it soon, but…I improved again, 32:03 on a busy, hilly course! More about that later…

I really just wanted to say what I’m thankful for today. I continue to be thankful for many of things I’ve already listed the past two weeks–(I’ll recap in a day or two)…but something new…I’m wearing a new red sweater I got from old navy, and I am happy to be wearing it. So the verdict is: I’m happy to have a bunch of new fall clothes to wear–and thankful because I can afford them, and because I NEEDED them due to my weight loss! So I’m thankful for new fall sweaters, long sleeve shirts, and pants, and the opportunities that led me to be able to get almost an entirely new fall wardrobe 🙂

Carnival Splendor part the third

So the Splendor has been towed to San Diego.  Here’s a nice collection of video links from a variety of sources.  Naturally the media has turned this into a “why cruising is unsafe” incident, though no one was hurt.  Thank you media for always overreacting to things.

Today I went for another park run.  Ugh.  Rough run!  I’ll blame the near 70 degree temperatures…how can it be so warm and yet these gorgeous fall photos?  And how come some days running is so easy and others I struggle so much?   Is it just the weather?  Maybe I’m tired?

 

 

 

I hope Saturday is cooler than today (it looks to be cooler and no longer rainy!).

Now it’s time for a workout with Mike followed by 8 students at my house and a rehearsal for a program on Sunday.  My 8 students at Good Shepherd are postponed until tomorrow due to Veteran’s Day today.

 

Morning off

Ah, a well-deserved morning off!  I got to sleep in a bit and have a leisurely breakfast.  I had hot oatmeal and decided to try a container of the Chobani Yogurt people have been raving about.  I had peach flavor…um…it was nothing special.  Sorry!

Tuesdays right now I teach one student.  In January I’ll be teaching at the St Louis School of Music on Tuesdays (or when they need me…).  Unfortunately I don’t know where I’ll move my Tuesday home student to…right now I am only able to teach at home on Monday and Thursday (which two months ago seemed like MORE than enough!).  I can’t believe my home studio is actually officially full.  (I will have a waiting list, for anyone interested.  There is always turnover).  I have picked up about five new students in the past couple of weeks and I am really excited about them.  I also have a new student at the Ballet School, starting tomorrow.  So many people to teach!  It’s wonderful how (from my point of view) private music education is alive, well, and thriving!

What else is going on this week?  Well, I am probably doing another race (5k) on Saturday.  I say probably because I registered, but it might rain, and we’ll have to see how am I feeling about that.  Honestly, I’m sure I’ll run it.  I seem to have the race bug right now, and I think I can beat my last time.  Plus this will be my first alone race, and I want to see how well I can pace myself on my own.  (I am looking at this as a positive thing, as my running is something I do alone, and I want to feel confident enough to do a race alone as well!)

I feel a bit stressed lately…I don’t actually have that much to do, but with the impending holidays, time is running out on concert prep and that sort of thing.  I’ve got about four different performances at my two schools to deal with in addition to my own gigs.  I also get stressed about house cleaning–ideally I’d like to live in a clean house, but have trouble picking up after myself, and I hate dusting…so I just stress about it rather than say, spending a morning off cleaning.  Then I take it out on Chris later 😉  I just need to keep up on my to-do list so I don’t forget things.

Off to the gym!