Thanksgiving, dead birds, and Boulder

So the 2nd of the fall/winter holidays has come and gone. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, the first time I've seen them in 11 months. Gas at 1.49 a gallon made the drive a little easier to swallow in my pickup as compared to last year. We closed early at work on Wednesday, at 1 pm and Jaz and I loaded up and made the trip. I arrived, had dinner with my brother and his g/f and her kid, and my mom even came down and joined us. Back to his place, sat in the hot tub and drank beer till all hours of the night, then off to bed. I got up the next morning and did my 6 miles that I scheduled with Jaz. The bike path that runs from Aspen to Glenwood was pretty much deserted that morning, so Jaz got to run free with no leash, that was very cool. I went back, worked on my brothers computer, started on some beer, and had dinner with my family. I lost a cool $100 on the Cardinals in the late game that night, somehow changing my mind from betting the over in the NFL game to thinking that the Cards could somehow beat the Eagles.

We got up the next morning, and headed to Delta for some pheasant hunting. It snowed overnight and all the way over McClure Pass. We had 5 guys/guns and 6 dogs. Jaz, Alex, Haley, and 3 others I didn't know. 4 labs and one pointer. We got a message from the guy who ran the bird ranch that it had rained over there all night and that the cover was really wet. We still hunted, finding 11 birds, with Jaz finding 5 and retrieving 4. Did I mention that she only hunted for less than an hour because of her bad hip? She was the rock star she has always been. We rode back to Carbondale, then I loaded up and headed back to Ft. Fun in a blizzard. I reached home safely and headed to work the next day.

On Dec 7th I made a return trip to run the Colder Boulder for the 2nd year in a row. Cool beanie, same crappy results. I was actually a minute faster than last year, but still got out too fast. I was in the 5:30's for parts of the first mile and flamed out again, I ran a 20:40. As tough as the course treats me, Neelia ran another PR on it. Strange.

This last weekend I ran the Christmas Classic 4 miler here in Ft. Collins. It snowed the night before and was below zero at the start. I suited up with 79 others and tackled the tough course, lots of uphills in this one, plus my lungs hurt from the cold. Steve Cathcart, who owns Runners Roost, and is a 16 something 5k dude and has BQ'd more times than I've raced only finished less than a minute ahead of me. Not that I am fast, it just shows how tough the course was, along with the conditions that we ran in. 25:18 was the winning time, hell I ran a 26:something last year in a 4 mile. I raced, won a pair of free socks for kicking Santa's ass, but got done, changed socks and shoes, and drove my truck, that was warmed up when I finished, to a place across town for breakfast, and still couldn't feel my toes. It was almost 40 minutes after the race that they finally felt normal again. A good tune up run for the Resolution Run that takes place on the 31st at 7pm. :-)

On a personal note, I am through feeling responsible for online relationships/freindships. With the exception of 2 people in my life, one being my brother, they are the only people that I am in contact with every day of my life. The people I work with are an exception as well. I don't talk to my mom every day, not even the lesbians that I live with. I care about a lot of people in my life, and with 11 hour work days and life the way that it is, I cannot text/pm/myspace/facebook/IM/E-mail every day. If the weekend gets by and we don't catch up, sorry, but life gets busy. I would hope that a message from me might not be the most importaint thing that happens in your day. I'm not trying to be a dick, but my life needs to involve more than that.

Merry Christmas all.