Brrr. It finally got cold here. I know for some of you, 47 is not cold but here, and with wind? That’s cold. In fact, Elliot put on shorts and a t-shirt this morning and when he fought me on changing, I just threw him outside for about 10 seconds. THEN he changed.

ANYway, my weekend consisted of so much good stuff. On Friday, I did manage to get out of the office early and I went to Target and the grocery store, then home to finish cleaning. Picked up the boys, started spaghetti sauce, and my parents got into town right around 5:30. We ate, then Ash went to Magic and the folks and I just sort of hung out. I was totally exhausted by 9:45 so I just went to bed.

Woke bright and early (6-ish?) to get ready for our race, and drove about 50 minutes to Boston, Georgia, which is kind of a nice drive, with a little swing through Monticello halfway through. We were later than we normally arrive but were able to register and talk to one of Ash’s friends before it began. Now, I started off feeling GREAT. I was averaging about a 10-10:30 pace and feeling wonderful. I’d say around mile 5, I decided maybe a Gu was a good idea so at that water stop, I took it and felt good all the way until after the half-way point. But then my right knee started to really kill. It was a sharp pain right around my kneecap, which hasn’t really hurt in my long training runs. Miles 7-10 were particularly awful, with some intermittent walking and readjusting of my knee band. I took my final gel (2nd surge, which is a great energy booster, but makes me nauseous) at mile 10.5 and I was still feeling OK until just before mile 12 when I had something happen that I have never experienced before: a calf cramp that literally took me to the ground. I massaged it for a bit then got back to running, but it really hurt. It was not my best time, nor was it my worst. If it hadn’t been for the cramp, I may have been ok. Le sigh. I was just happy it was over; my leg was bad all the way home BUT…

…once we got back into town and ate some sandwiches, my mother and I went to my favorite spa and I got a wonderful pedicure. The leg massage really helped my calf. We went to the mall afterwards to look for new FSU shirts for Mom and then home to find that our couch was being delivered! Yay! Seriously, my new couch is awesome. I may have to find new TV shows to watch JUST so I can sit on it more. Ahem. Anyway, we hung out in the afternoon then went for Mexican for dinner. It’s funny: both Friday and Sunday felt like really long days but Saturday felt short, though when I was running, it felt like it would never end.

Sunday morning we ate bagels and took walks then prepped for a large lunch. My folks left around 2, we watched football all afternoon, then walked again, ate pizza, and then watched more football on the magical couch. All in all, a great time. I have a ton of work to do this week and for many weeks to come so the weekend was a nice little reprieve before. But I am going to make that hot stone massage appointment, probably for Saturday mid-morning. I kid myself that I won’t run for a week but that’s not true. Turkey Trot is coming up and I’ll probably do the 15k. Now that my parents and I finally figured out our plans (they’re coming here; we didn’t even argue!) I can run it. I was going to the the 10k but I think I’m short-changing myself. I can run a 9 miler just fine.

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Of course, this week’s them is, again, Halloween. I couldn’t find any actual music videos but I remember this cartoon (which is mostly sound effects and instrumentals) being kind of spooky and scary. So, check it out!