Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I have a lot to be thankful for today - I have a wonderful husband, three happy and healthy adult sons, great family, great friends, a great job... I'm even happy with my car!

The local track club hosted an 8K race today, and I ran it along with Kim, Melissa and my youngest son.  We knew my son would be faster (he's 19), so he ran on.  The plan was for the rest of us to stay together, but Melissa took off early.  She explained why later, and I laughed at her, but I'll let her tell that if she chooses to!  So, Kim and I kept running, but Kim had this look on her face... and I suffer from dreadful IBS, which I keep under control by downing copious amounts of Immodium. Sometimes 6 pills a day.  It can be that bad.

 I know what that look means when I am wearing it.  On my face, it means: "Please leave me alone, there might be an explosion."  Then Kim confirmed that she was having stomach issues, and I felt so bad for her, because that is absolutely the WORST feeling during a race. There are pains I can run through, but when the GI tract is acting up I am useless.

Kim told me to go ahead - and, let me tell you, did I ever have mixed emotions about that one!  I hate leaving someone when I've planned to run with them, but I will tell you right now that if I am ever running with you and I suggest that you might go ahead, it's because I don't want the people that I know seeing me if I have an accident.  And, yes, you folks who want me to spell it out, I mean if I poop my pants.  But you don't want to ask someone you've run with twice if that's the case with them.  You know?  So, what to do?

Well, I figured I'd err on the side of caution and run on - 5 miles isn't that long and I knew we could find one another at the finish. So, I sped up and ran on, and I was moving pretty fast (for me) - even with the very slow first mile, I was at mile 3 at 28 minutes.  Mile 2 & 3 were fast.  

And then, it hit - only this wasn't my customary GI distress - I just had to pee.   No big deal, right?  And I ignored it, and ran on.  Melissa and I were passing one another right and left - it was funny - like a runner's version of Spy vs Spy.  And the urge to pee got worse. I started looking at the side of the road, but we were along the river and it was pretty open.  And it kept getting worse - it was actually painful!

And then I saw it, just ahead.  The sweet beige of a porta-potty!  I was so happy!!  I started running faster and saw that there weren't even any lines.  Whoohoo - a porta-potty with no lines in the middle of a race?  That's a gift!  And then I got closer and realized that the reason there were no lines was because it was some sort of utility shed... and it wasn't even big enough to hide behind for a minute.  I almost cried, I'm not kidding.  It's funny now, but it was not at all funny then!

There was nothing left to do but finish the race.  I tried to hold a steady speed, and I'm sure I looked like I was doing some sort of cross between running and the pee-pee dance.  I finally finished the stupid race in just under 50 minutes, stopped to give up my timing chip and then went straight to the porta-potty.  I tried to take a second to talk to some friends, but it wasn't happening.  The potty beckoned, and let me just say thank goodness there weren't any lines!

Then we went back to find Kim and she was only a few minutes behind us, in spite of her stomach.  And Melissa was ahead of me, so we were all easily under an hour.  I'd call that a pretty successful race all the way around.  We were all pretty happy with our finish times, I think.  

And then it was time for the raffle - they held a raffle at the end of the race, and you got a ticket for every canned item you brought.  I brought two bags of food, and Melissa and Kim were similarly loaded down.  They started drawing the tickets when I realized that the woman who had given me some of my tickets gave me BOTH halves - in other words, my tickets weren't even in!  I was sad about that, and Melissa said, "See if they'll add them in!"

So I did, and I won TWO things!  A fanny pack, which the Princess will love for biking, and then this little gem:

Yup - I won a GARMIN!!!  Now, I knew they were giving away a Garmin at this race, and we had done lots of joking about the Garmin, but never in my wildest dreams did I dream that I would win it!  So, I never win anything, and now in the last week I have one Kim's fabulously cute headband giveaway, a running pack AND a GARMIN!!!  Can you tell I am a little excited about it?

Melissa and I will make good use of this little guy, let me tell you.  We are perfectly capable of sharing it, too - we are neighbors and we send things back and forth all the time.  The Garmin is charging, bread is rising on the stove, the turkey is in the oven and here's hoping that all of you have as nice a holiday as I have had so far.  Minus that urge to pee in a utility shed, of course!

Happy Thanksgiving!