what's in a {holiday} weekend

Posted by Kate November 27, 2011

what's in a {holiday} weekend

well, we're currently on our way back from our annual thanksgiving festivities. peter is out of town for the night on a quick trip for work, and i'm headed back to char-town with his parents and sister.

i had in mind to get a little bit of work done, and prepare a blog post for later since there isn't much more to do on a five-ish hour drive, but i opened my laptop only to discover that though i didn't really use it much this weekend i also never turned it completely off, nor did i charge it - so we'll see how this goes!

i had a bit of an up and down weekend. most of it was quite fantastic. everything went about as i expected it to go up until saturday morning. wednesday night there was much excitement as everyone arrived in richmond. we had chili for dinner - as the tradition goes - and then all the cousins hung out and caught up. thursday was full of cinnamon rolls, parade watching, tons of delicious food, football games, and family bonding time. friday included a morning of an 8 mile run, and a huge brunch, followed by an afternoon of successful shopping, and a dinner of stuffed shells.

then came saturday... i was supposed to do an 18 mile run for marathon training saturday morning. rachel had mapped me out a course, meg was set to meet me about 13 or 14 miles in with sustenance, and peter was going to run the first 2.5 or 3 miles with me to get me started at a good pace.

then i woke up feeling like absolute junk. me being me however, i decided that i must just be hungry, and proceeded to the kitchen to prepare and eat my normal pre-run meal of oatmeal and gatorade.

long story short, i lost all my breakfast plus the gatorade gel i had after i lost half of my breakfast, because i was still fairly determined to go.

peter had to talk me out of going using logical reasoning such as: if you cannot hold down any calories, it's not a good idea to try to run 18 miles. you know, silly things like that.

of course, me being me again, i thought it best to call my dad - who ran a few marathons in his day, and make him tell me that missing an 18 mile run due to losing everything in my stomach would not entirely ruin my marathon training, and everything would still be okay.

i told him that he had to confirm this sort of thing because my competitive "crazy" comes from him, so if he said it was okay i would believe him.

he said - almost verbatim - what peter said about calories and energy, so i resigned myself to sleeping for much of yesterday.

i have to say, it was a crappy way to spend a saturday. i felt horrible - literally, and figuratively. but i was also very thankful for the people who cared for me -- those who made me soup and tea, who forced me to rest, who reassured me that adapting my running will not ruin anything, etc., etc. family is funny that way.

and now it's time to think about christmas. it still doesn't quite feel like christmastime to me despite the fact that i'll bring home our christmas tree tonight, despite the fact that we've already purchased many of the gifts we'll be giving, despite the fact that this is the first sunday in advent - despite all of those outward things - i just don't feel ready for it yet.

hopefully the weather will cool off once again, and become more fall/winter/christmas like soon. i think that will make it much much easier for me to get into the holiday spirit.

now i'm off to pick up some groceries, and pick out our tree. maybe the clean pine smell will make it feel like christmas...

i hope you had a fabulous thanksgiving, and i hope you carry your grateful spirit the whole way through the end of this year, and next.