Is it Really Monday?

Good morning. It’s Monday – ugh! Back to the grind again. I promised a race recap yesterday, but I didn’t end up having a chance to post at all. So here it goes:

2009 Troy Turkey Trot
Since high school, my friend Lauren and I have run the Troy Turkey Trot together every Thanksgiving. From 2006 through 2008, I took a little break and didn’t run it. This year was my triumphant return!

Lauren picked me up on Thursday morning around 8:30 and brought my race packet with her. We headed into Troy in search of parking. This year, the race course was changed a bit and the starting place was different. We found a spot and started jogging in the direction of the old start. After jogging for about 5 minutes, we realized everyone else was running in the opposite direction. So we turned around and followed the masses to the new start. Oops! 🙂

After finding the start, we hung out for a bit and ran into a bunch of people from high school. We also met up with our friend Kelly, who was running the race unofficially, or as a “bandit.” We headed to the starting line to find her dad and a few other of her family members. Miraculously, we found them standing at about the 9:30 minute mile pace area.

We started chatting and then before we knew it the race started. It was PACKED!! Apparently, this was the largest ever Troy Turkey Trot. We were all crammed in trying to move, but it was a slow start. I had a slight goal in the back of my mind – to beat 24 minutes, so I started getting a little annoyed with the slow start.

Lauren and I tried to stick together and manuever through people, but it just wasn’t happening. So after about 5 minutes, we got split up.

In general, I will say this was a frustrating race. It might have been less so if we had started closer to the actual starting line and I didn’t have to spend the majority of the beginning of the race trying to weave my way through runners.

I was concentrating so much on not running over people, that I was shocked to find myself at the halfway turn-around point! I had already been running for a little longer than 12 minutes. That’s when I realized that I needed to pick it up a bit.

I started increasing my speed and then all of a sudden I saw a HUGE hill in front of me. Everyone around me starting groaning and some even cursed in anger. This was certainly a new addition to the course.

I made it up the hill and was finally almost done. My watch time was very different from the clock time, so I tried to pay attention only to my watch. It was getting close to 24 minutes, so I knew we were almost done. I spotted the finish line and starting kicking it in and sprinting to the finish. I knew it was going to be very close… and it was. I finished the race in 24:03. Sooo close to breaking 24 minutes! 

I felt great after the race and was shocked at how quickly it went by. I can’t wait to run another 5k soon and try to break 24 minutes again.

Has your 5k time improved since running longer races, like 10k, half marathon, marathons?

Here’s a photo from the finish of myself, Lauren, Stephen and Stephanie. I look like a midget next to these tall peeps! 

So that was my race recap – now I’ll try to give a consolidated recap of Saturday night and Sunday.

Saturday night I hung out with Becky and Josh and Chrissie and Dan. Becky, Chrissie and I went to high school together. We tried a new restaurant in Saratoga called The Irish Times. We started off with some appetizers, including nachos, spring rolls and wings. Here are the nachos and spring rolls:

My dinner was a burger (boring) and the picture I took came out terrible, so I’m leaving it out. After dinner, we headed to The Parting Glass for a few drinks. Ok – maybe more than a few:

And then we marvelled at how mini my hands look compared to Josh’s.

It was a fun night in Saratoga!

Sunday morning I was up fairly early, so I headed to the mall to finish up some shopping crowd-free.

Did you shop during the long weekend? Or will you be partaking in Cyber Monday deals?

When I came home I had a multi-grain English muffin with peanut butter and banana. Lauren and I had planned to go running in the early afternoon, so this was also my running fuel.

Around 1:00 Lauren came to my parent’s house and we headed out for a nice run. The weather upstate was gorgeous! A little brisk, but not freezing. We probably ran about 5.5 miles. I haven’t used mapmyrun.com to calculate the route we took yet, but we finished at around 52 minutes. We also challenged ourselves by taking on two big hills during the run. It felt great to finish.

After our run, I had this for lunch and then again for dinner! So only one picture:

My mom made this soup and it was FANTASTIC!! I will definitely be making it. She got the recipe from the Food Network, here it is:

Tortellini Tomato Spinach Soup
 
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 to 6 cups chicken broth (can also use vegetable broth)
1  14 oz. can whole tomatoes, crushed through your fingers  (I used a little more)
1  9 oz. package fresh tortellini or dried tortellini
1/4 cup of red wine
Salt and Pepper to taste
Dash of Parsley and Basil
6 oz. package fresh baby spinach – tear into pieces
Parmesan Cheese
 
In a 3 quart soup pot, heat olive oil over med. high heat and saute onion for several minutes then add garlic stirring for few minutes then add broth, wine and tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper;  turn heat up to high and bring to a boil – add tortellini and cook according to package instructions. When tortellini is almost done, add spinach.  Cook for a few minutes until spinach is wilted. Once you dish soup into bowls, shave parmesan cheese over the top and serve. 
 
It takes about 10 minutes to prep. and approx. 20 to 30 minutes to cook.

It was soo yummy. Bill had some of it when he came to pick me up to head back to NYC and he said it was very good as well. Then we set off for home. Along the way, I don’t know if my allergies were acting up or what, but I started to feel a cold coming on. EEEKS! I hate being sick.

When we got home, I took some Severe Cold Sudafed, a vitamin c tablet and ate a clementine. Then I went straight to bed! This morning, I am feeling much better (knock on wood). Hopefully, if it was a cold, I kept it at bay. But I have a feeling it was just my allergies.

What are your “secret'” tips for killing a cold quick?

Happy Monday blog world!