Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all! I'm in Minnesota, hooray!

I love to come up here and run and was looking forward to the cool weather for some of these long runs - but it is downright cold! Today I ran around Lake Harriet twice (about 5 miles??) and it was a wee bit chilly (29 degrees) and toward the end of the run I felt quite the hip twinge.

Have I told you all about my troublesome hip? It's been slightly bothersome on a few runs but has not given me much trouble for the last few weeks. Suddenly, today, I felt it again except today it was worse. A decidedly sharp pain in the area of the hip flexor, so I stopped running immediately and walked the rest of the way to the car, stretching out carefully when I returned. Strangely, it has been fine since then, not the achiness I was feeling before, so I guess I'll just wait to see what happens.

Tomorrow is the Turkey Trot. I was enormously lazy and didn't sign up for it early so it's going to cost me an extra 5 bucks - or whatever... There's also something going on at Lake Harriet - a 6 miler (really, more my speed), so maybe I should do that instead? That's a "Drumstick Dash." Don'tcha just love the holidays?

The long run this week will be something like 12 miles (I'm going to attempt some kind of Lake-of-the-Isles/Calhoun/Harriet combo), just mapping something out. I wanted to run with the MN TNT group, but that sort of fell through last weekend. Actually, that's a something of a story...

So, there I was at Lake Calhoun, searching in vain for the TNT group when I approached a man who looked like he was gathering runners - perhaps he was the coach? I asked him if he was with Team-in-Training and he harumphed! An actual harumph followed by a dismissive wave of the hand and a "They're afraid of the snow." (!) This was my first experience with runners snobbery and I did not deal well. Not to mention the fact that I currently live in Texas and I was running in the snow! Anyway, the guy irritated me so much (and I still couldn't find the TNT folks) that I just went out on my own. The good news is that my anger sustained me for the first 3 miles or so, when I'm normally irriatable and sluggish. Only problem was, I was not prepared and had no water, so I spent the first little bit just running around looking for a convenience store (finally found one somewhere off of Lyndale). Not a bad run, all in all, I think I ended up doing something a bit over 11 miles, though it's hard to say 'cause I hadn't mapped the course. Longest distance yet, though somehow I just wasn't that pumped. I wonder why?

Okay, must dash. Holiday preperations have us all on the hop. Happy Thanksgiving everyone and I will give you feedback from my first road race sometime in the next few days!