Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Sorry, I know raw turkey is not appetizing…

I feel so fortunate that I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving all week. Last Saturday, we hosted my parents and some friends over at our apartment for an early Thanksgiving since we were going to be in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving and Chanukah. I even attempted at making a turkey last weekend. This was our first attempt and we definitely learned our lesson that turkey takes much longer to cook than the recipe prescribes! However, we were excited by our side dishes – mashed sweet potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, stuffing, cranberry sauce, apple dumpling cake and all of the Chinese dishes my mom cooked.

On Wednesday, we started our road trip to Pittsburgh. Normally, we would have flown but the cost of the flights were just too much. The trip would have taken around 6-7 hours with short stops but due to weather, our leisure pacing, and a stop to pick up my turkey trot bib, it took us over 9 hours. Fortunately, the storms that were supposed to hit our route were not as bad as originally predicted.

Thanksgiving morning was an early one for me this year! With just a little over five hours of sleep, I was ready to conquer my first ever turkey trot! Sure, I could have run on the treadmill in the hotel on Thanksgiving morning and called it a turkey trot, but it just wouldn’t have been the same as running in 15 degree temperatures (wind chill felt like 9)! The 23rd PNC YMCA Turkey Trot in Pittsburgh took place right by PNC Park where the Pirates play. There were three different turkey trot options – a 1-mile fun run, 5K, and 5-miler. I chose to run the 5K since it was shorter, started earlier and would allow us to get back to our family celebrations sooner.

I’m the one in purple and I look like I have my eyes closed going through the finish…

Despite the frigid temperatures, I really enjoyed the entire race. It was well organized, the course was a really nice run through the area around the stadiums and then over the Roberto Clemente Bridge into downtown Pittsburgh and back. Since this was my first “hard” run since the marathon, I really wasn’t sure what to expect especially with how cold it was. I went into the race really hoping to just break 30 minutes, however, my legs had other ideas as soon as I started. There was no strategy except for Josh telling me to run faster right before I started so that way he can get into warmth sooner! My first mile was slightly over 8:05, second mile around 9:00 (I don’t know what happened here), and the final mile was the fastest, closer to 8:00. I left enough gas in the tank to sprint the last 0.1 miles into the finish to set almost a 40 second personal record! My time was 26:51! It took a little while for the official results to be posted and at first it had me at 9th in my age group, however, that was incorrect since the times were sorted on clock time rather than chip time. After the adjustments, it looks like I placed 15th in my age group out of 250. Regardless, I am very excited for the PR and my performance. Thank goodness for post-marathon fitness, huh?

With the race out of the way, I was all set to enjoy Thanksgivingkuh! Over the last couple of days, I definitely ate enough food properly celebrate my favorite holiday and kick off December! As if that wasn’t enough, today was our 28th day in the winemaking process which meant that we bottled 12 bottles of wine today!

I have a feeling I will be eating and drinking my way through the month of December. However, there are a couple of challenges that I am hoping to accomplish by the end of the year to off set all of the food – complete the I <3 Barre Challenge (today was my 6th session, 6 more to go by 12/22), reach 1,100 miles for year (I’m about 48 miles away), and log miles in three different countries (more to come on this)!

How will you be celebrating the month of December? What about the holidays? And what challenges do you have planned for the month?