Nice Holiday weekend

So all I did all weekend was sit around and stuff myself with turkey, dressing and pecan pie.

YEA RIGHT

COME ON PEOPLE WE ARE TRIATHLETES HERE

So I started thursday out with a 7 mile run. It went pretty smooth, took 72 minutes and burned 1000 calories. Then I was ready go hang with the fam for a while. My folks are here in town so we made it over there with girls in tow about 12:45. They started eating about 12:30. I had 3 plates, including a gigantious dessert plate. Turkey, ham, dressing, mac & cheese, some salad and some veg. And cake(s), ah the cakes. multiple cakes. it was fantastic.

You know how nobody else in the entire world knows how to cook better than your grandmother? I swear, now that my mom is a grandmother she has really stepped it up a notch. But here's the kicker:

Before leaving, I had to TIGHTEN my belt up a notch. Hey, I came prepared. I even still have some "buffet" pants in the closet, you know with the hidden elastic in the waistband? Turkey day is when you need those kind of pants. Gives you some room for sudden growth. But alas, my buffet pants are too large now and they just fall off. So the jeans that are also too big now get the belt. And guys wear the same belt, notched in the same hole every day, and it rarely changes. I bought this particular belt back in july, and it fit in the 3rd hole up from the smallest.

And AFTER THANKSGIVING DINNER I had to push it up to the smallest notch in the belt just to keep my pants up. Take that, waistline! Flynn 1, Holiday Fat 0.

It was pretty cool hanging with my whole mom's side of the family. Only 1 cousin was missing, and his wife is pregnant so they went to see her family that day. maybe 20 of us were there, including one cousin who lives in Washington, DC. She doesn't make it back to Greenville very much, so that was great.

Friday we got up and hoofed it down to Wifey's mom's place. It's a couple of hours away, they live on Lake Murray in Prosperity, SC, kind of in the middle of the state. If you are old like me and can remember the 1992 Bush/Clinton campaign when Bill Clinton was first elected, the bush's heavily used a street sign that said <-- Clinton Prosperity --> that sign was referencing Clinton, SC and Prosperity SC. they are about 20 miles apart. We were in Prosperity. It is very flat there.

So I got in a 24 mile bike ride in 1 hour, 36 minutes. I also got to use the Garmin watch for the first time. That made it a whole different ballgame. In bike mode, it told me the speed and tracked the distance I covered. it's a Forerunner 205 that Wifey's dad is getting us for christmas, and I had to try it out once first. I got up to a top speed of 31.5 mph at one point. I'd say I averaged around 16/17 mph. That's the longest I've ever gone on the bike, distance wise. So now I'm really looking forward to the spring when I get back into Tri mode and can log some serious hours on the bike.

When I got in from the ride, I had some Recoverite and grabbed a shower. Then got to have a big chunk of their thanksgiving leftovers. We didn't get any leftovers here, so I had to take advantage. Then I hit the snacks, powdered doughnuts, cupcakes, and happy cookies (yogurt covered pretzels -- Bigun calls them happy cookies). Then I had a fantastic country dinner that they made. I think she's stepped up her game some too since becoming a grandmother. So I freakin ATE. and yet the belt stayed at that smallest notch!

Saturday it rained across the entire east coast. I had an 11 mile run planned, but ended up laying on the couch and watching football all day. But it was a great day to lay around, drink coffee and watch football. Good games, and 30 degrees and raining outside all day long. We ended up leaving the girls in Prosperity and coming back to Greenville sat night. Saturday was also Wifey's mom's birthday.

Now I love and am very close with all of my in-laws. Especially her mom's side of the family. But sometimes they ain't right in the head. Example: I told mom that we were sitting down to eat with my folks at 1 pm on turkey day. Now she knows it's a 2 hour drive from our house to hers. And she said "so, do you want to eat with us about 2? does that give you enough time?" I laughed. She's a product of the south carolina public school system. When I pointed out the flaw in her logic, she agreed that we could just drive down the next day. Happy Birthday!

We came back without kids for a couple of reasons. I've had to work all day today (Sunday). That's what I get for trying to take friday off, I guess. But I've got a big install coming up Thursday and have to finish coding the software. Tough deadline. Wifey wanted to clean the house thoroughly. the kind of cleaning you can't do with kids present to immediately destroy it.

I also still had an 11 mile run to make up today. I made the fatal error of not taking any Advil before going to the gym. So I made it 7 miles in and had to quit. Some strange hamstring pain, knee and ankle pain, even some foot pain all in the right leg. The left leg just had some shin pain and ankle pain. Still enough to make me stop short. Which is not something I like to do. So do you think I might be overtraining if I have to take advil before every run? I'm following the plan pretty close to the letter. Most weeks I've been taking an extra rest day. This was wed rest, thurs 7 miles, fri 24 mile bike, sat rest, sun 7 miles, mon rest. Really a recovery week for a marathon training plan.

And the belt is still on the smallest notch. Maybe santa claus needs to bring me a new belt? I hope your thanksgiving was a fantastic as mine!

One other thing. The pic in my last post about the babies with the blue/green background and little round things are pics of people. Petri dish people. But when you do IVF they give you a pic of the eggs that have been injected with sperm and grown. It takes 3 days for the fertilized embryos to grow into something viable. The cells divide and the human growth process starts. 2 of those human embryos have 8 cells and the other one only has 6, it hadn't divided that day. That's when they are implanted back into the woman, and if one or more can attach to the uterine lining they call it a pregnancy. So what's the youngest pic you've got of your kids? half hanging out of the birth canal? try 8 cells old. I don't want to spark a religion/abortion/life begins when debate, I just thought that pic was really cool and nobody commented about it so it warranted more explanation. Some folks here in the bible belt (not us) actually take the 'life begins at conception' topic so far as to time the baby's age from conception, which is usually a guess. We knew exactly. That's weird, when the wife is 7 months pregnant they say the baby is 7 months old. they have a 1st birthday party 3 months after the baby is born. seems very strange to me, but I don't like to judge what other people believe. I just thought the pic of an 8 celled human is really cool.