Check My Brain

Ah, Thanksgiving. I think it's my favorite holiday. Lots of eating, drinking and relaxing. What's wrong with that?

Had kind of a crazy T-giving Eve. Matt, Trish and the boys showed up for the weekend. Then I went to hockey for the first time in five weeks. We had 4-on-4 with no subs. Just brutal. Got out, had a few brews in the parking lot and then left. I decided to hit a nearby gas station because the Explorer was nearly out of gas. Filled up and then the vehicle wouldn't start. Engine wouldn't even turn over. After trying everything I could think of for 10 minutes, I made the difficult decision to call and wake up Deb. In her sleep-addled haze, she smartly suggested I call AAA. I did and they had a tow truck out to me within 5 minutes. The guy quickly deduced that I needed a new starter, but he also showed me how to start the Explorer using a wrench touching two bolts.

So I didn't get to bed until after 1 a.m. Had to get up at 6:30 to run the Wild Turkey 5-Miler in Salem with Deb, Matt and Trish. I had low expectations for the race, given I had skated for 80 minutes and only had five hours of sleep. The weather was great (40s and cloudy) and I was hoping to run it in about 40 minutes. But I felt good and kept my pace up. The last two miles I still felt strong and kicked it up a notch and I ended up finishing in 36:27 by my watch (36:33 official), a PR by about 40 seconds. Didn't expect that. Deb, Matt and Trish all ran strong races.

We went up to my mom's in Hampton for Turkey meal #1 then came back down here for meal #2. Lots of food. Good times. The womenfolk got up early to do the Black Friday thing, as did Matt briefly. I caught up on sleep and had a pretty lazy day. As it should be.