Running on Turkey. And more!

It's been awhile, I know. I blame the stress at work that is making the rest of my hair fall out. Let's see, what's happened since November 16th.

MIT Biathlon (November 22):
The beginning of a tradition. Those two squash/swimming powerhouses, Canada and the US, represented by Alan Lee and Rob O'Brien respectively, squared off at the "Z-Center" at MIT on Sunday night. It was a split, with the US narrowingly winning the squash competition and Canada swimming circles around the US in the pool. Granted, I was going up against a champion swimmer, but the depth of my failure made me consider using some sort of motorized propulsion system for my next triathlon just to stay in the thick of things. More time in the pool can only help.

Donahue's Turkey Trot (November 26):
Sunday, November 22nd I came down with a mean cold. That had me waylaid until Wednesday. Coincidentally, that was the first day of my Thanksgiving vacation. What luck! It meant that I was going into the Turkey Trot on stale legs. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 2008, the O'Brien/Howard/Schweizer/Bernstein family started a family tradition--running in the Donahue's 5K Turkey Trot in Watertown. This year, almost the entire family ran. Here are some notables: aunt Susan Howard won her age group, mother Karen Howard and father Chris O'Brien ran very well for their first races ever, brother Charlie O'Brien took several minutes off his time from a year ago. I, on the other hand, got slower. Fortunately (?) this year, I was wearing my new GPS watch which allowed me to see that I ran the first mile in a blistering 5:49 and the third mile at a crawling 6:24. Bad pacing.... I have already found many scapegoats: 1) the lingering cold; 2) my lack of training in the month of November; 3) a holiday spirit that made me smile and talk to my fellow runners and thank the volunteers instead of crushing the competition. Whatever it was, maybe I'll do better next year. Although, as a wise man once said, every year I get older and they stay the same age. (please submit your guesses as to the reference guesses in the comment section).

November 30th:
Miracle of all miracles, I got up to run on a weekday morning. I was obviously well-rested if I convinced myself to get out of bed. I was recovering from some "runner's knee" that I got during the Turkey Trot and this run definitely didn't help matters. The experience actually led me to believe that I should shut it down for the rest of the week. That happily coincided with a string of 4 weekday mornings during which I didn't want to get out of bed.

Rehab:
Following a discussion with my unofficial injury coach, Meggie S., I spent a good amount of time stretching and doing some leg strength exercises. Here's a link to a great blog post of hers about the benefits of stretching (and ways to do it).

Winter triathlon (December 6th):
Yesterday I decided to get back at it (after an indulgent weekend that pretty much necessitated it). Under clear and crisp (cold?) skies, I donned my tights, long-sleeve, vest, hat, gloves, shoes, and ridiculous watch and headed out for a run along the Charles. I actually decided to run backwards this time! Not actually backwards, mind you, just in the opposite direction from which I usually run. So I headed down Cambridge St., across the Longfellow Bridge, and west along the river to the Weeks Bridge. I crossed over and ran back to the Longfellow Bridge, down Charles St. and up Beacon St. My nifty watch told me this was 8.92 miles. For you runners out there, you can probably agree that running a course backwards is somewhat akin to running in completely new neighborhoods. It was a real breath of fresh air, almost as fresh as the cold air that I was actually breathing.
After some football watching and beer drinking, I headed to MIT to meet up with Mr. Canada for some more squash and swimming. The squash match was very streaky, with very little consistent play. The swimming was more consistent, in that I was consistently on the border between "swimming" and needing to be rescued. Hmm, that scene from the Sandlot comes to mind, maybe I'm on to something here. Actually, I thought I was swimming better than last time, I felt like I could swim for quite a while. That should come in handy when I need to swim 1.2 miles this August. Post-swim, Alan and I had burritos and hot peppers from Anna's. The hot pepper made me forget all about my aching legs and made me focus on my burning mouth. Maybe I should try some variation of this strategy during my next marathon....