I feel like I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving last week. We ended up doing Thanksgiving separately with mine and my wife’s families this year, which really just meant double the food. We started out with brunch at my mother-in-law’s house, which I actually did quite well at. For someone who doesn’t eat meat herself, it was a surprisingly paleo-friendly meal. There were scrambled eggs mixed with sausage and veggies, and these bacon-wrapped beef steaks that were pretty amazing.
After brunch we went over to my folks’ house for an early-afternoon dinner. My mom made the pretty traditional Thanksgiving meal: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, rolls, etc. My uncle also brought over some rather delicious moose sausage. I had a little bit of everything, but tried to go heavier on the turkey and moose sausage than everything else. I also only had one serving – no seconds of anything! For dessert, there was both pumpkin and pecan pie. Let me tell you, I am a sucker for pecan pie – it’s my absolute favorite, and this is the one and only time a year my mom makes it, so of course I had some! I actually had a medium-ish size piece of both pies, I was living on the wild side!
All in all, I felt like I did pretty well this Thanksgiving with not completely gorging myself as I have in years past. I was definitely full after the meal, but not uncomfortably so. Still, I know I ate more than I normally would, which kind of led to an entire weekend of not-the-best eating. Nothing completely terrible, and I’m back on track now, but still something I need to be more mindful of, and work harder to keep myself in check in the future.
Thanksgiving Traditions
One of my family’s Thanksgiving-weekend traditions has always been to put up the Christmas decorations, having that weekend as the kickoff to the holiday season. But now that our daughter was born on December 10th last year, we decided that we don’t want the focus of the house to be completely taken over by Christmas until after her birthday. So this year, we just put up the outside lights, and will wait until after the 10th to do everything else. I did, however, manage to get in my traditional Thanksgiving-weekend viewing of my favorite Christmas movie of all time – Christmas Vacation 🙂
Marathon Week
Marathon week is finally here! I’m both excited and slightly terrified at the same time. Now is when all the worry and self-doubt has started to come pouring in, hoping that I’ve trained hard enough. At the end of the day, I know that I’ve put the work in, and that I should be fine. I just also worry because the whole thing has become such an event, with flying all the way down to Vegas, dragging along friends and family, etc. Both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are coming along and walking the 1/2 Marathon, and my mother is coming too, but just to watch and be supportive. A good friend of mine and his wife are also coming down for support (it’s not the only reason they’re coming to Vegas, but it’s definitely a big part of it). So there’s a part of me that feels a lot of pressure, and I don’t want it to end up being a big disappointment if my run doesn’t go well for whatever reason.
We’ve had some pretty nasty weather here lately, with a fair amount of snow, and now a bit of a cold-snap, so I’ve been doing the vast majority of my running inside on the treadmill. In fact, when I run my marathon on Sunday, it will be the first time in 3 weeks that I have run outdoors, so hopefully that won’t cause any problems. The weather report for Sunday has the start of the race around 40°, warming up to around 60° by the end of the race, which is just about perfect running conditions in my book.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about writing my name on my shirt for race day. I’ve heard of a lot of other people doing this, especially for their first marathon. The idea is that people on the sidelines will yell out and cheer for you by name, which might be exactly the sort of encouragement I need toward the end of the race. It sounds like a fun idea, and I think that I’ll probably end up doing it.
I’m getting to Vegas Thursday night, and won’t be leaving until Monday afternoon, which will be nice to have a day to rest after the marathon on Sunday before I have to hop back on a plane. There’s also going to be some other really awesome bloggers there that I hope to be able to meet up with. I’ve been really excited about this trip for a while, and it’s hard to believe that I’ve only got one more day of work before I’m on my way – and only 5 days until I’ll be running my first marathon!
I likely won’t have any more updates here until after I get back from Vegas, but I’m sure I’ll be tweeting (at least some) while I’m in Vegas, so you can keep an eye out there if you want to see how I do on Sunday!
Good luck man!
What are your weight stats at the moment?
Thanks Harry! I’ve been hanging in right under 200 lately, around 198. Hopefully the lighter weight will help me run faster 🙂
Great job on your Thanksgiving choices! I think you should write your name on your shirt for the marathon. You might also think about doing what Tara did, which is writing something about your weight lost and how long you’ve been running. I know you’ll do great – trust in your training and HAVE FUN!!
Sounds like you had a really successful Thanksgiving! Way to go, Brandon!
Good luck in Vegas – I know you’ll do great!
I think you should write “virgin” on your shirt. 🙂
Do well!
Do you have a layover in Seattle either way? I will honestly drive down to the airport just to wish you good luck/congrats in person. And I can probably drag Tara and maybe Val down with me. 🙂
Yeah, you totally know you could drag me with you!!
You are going to rock the marathon. I can understand the pressure you must be feeling. Just do your best to relax. You’ve got this… you have proven that you have what it takes to cross that finish line. I still remember when you started C25K. That was not too long ago.
I love Mac’s idea of writing “virgin” on your shirt. THAT’S GREAT!!!! Do it do it do it!!!! he he he….
I made sort of primal friendly mock mashed potatoes (cauliflower) and a pumpkin pie with ground almonds and a bit of butter for the crust and pumpkin, whipping cream, and truvia and spices for the filling. Was yum.
Don’t stress about your race, you are going to rock it…just enjoy it!
checking in and CHEERING YOU ON.
wishing I could be there.
Carla
So pumped to hear about your first go at 26 miles. Pace yourself and remember that beer makes the best recovery beverage.
It’s funny you should mention that – normally I’m not a real big drinker, but I realized later that the night after finishing my first marathon, I drank 3 beers 🙂