Hello November

October 2016 has come and gone, and what a time it was. Slightly warmer than I would really like, it was pretty comfortable all month. I got in the first 2 races in my 12 in 8 streak completed with the New River Trail 50k and the Triple Lakes Trail Marathon. Here's how the numbers shook down:

Swim: 19,800 yards, 7 swims
Bike: nothing again!
Run: 120.2 miles, 10 runs, 2 races
Strength: 4 times
Yoga: 8 times

Swimming and yoga was my recovery strategy between the marathons. With races of 31 and 26.2 miles, almost half of that monthly total running miles came from there. I still got in 16 and 18 mile long runs in between, and plenty of others. Overall this was a solid month of training and I can't complain a bit about my performance in either race. And the 50k put my annual mileage over the 1000 mark for the year, well on my way to getting that 1200 mile goal.

This may be the latest monthly recap I've ever written (the 20th? really?) so now I have to remember what else happened. At least there are some pictures. oh wait, some of those are really horrible.

Trail running!

Beautiful day, beautiful Umstead State park

For Halloween this year, Evil Genius wanted to be a Generic Greek Goddess, and Ella wanted to be a Cheshire Cat. Mom sewed EG's dress and sent it to us, then Kelley added some decoration and built Ella's costume from scratch. It's insane. Mad respect for her pulling off the costumes this year. The only thing I did was wear Ella's shirt so it would be stretched tight enough to apply duct tape. We went trick or treating with EG's best friend and her whole family. One of the best Halloween's yet. for sure.

The whole crew in costume

trick or treating action shot

with the haul at the end of the night

 Topless Year
I did get one photo for the Topless Year project. It was warm some, but there was a disturbing lack of pictures.

Outside of swim practice on 10/10

there was some bad. and I'm writing this the week of Thanksgiving, so I already feel sorry for my pants and the amount of stretching that they are about to go through. Buttons will be pushed to their limits, possibly because of their starting point.

oh, that's bad

that's just a shadow

I have man-tits now. must get a sports-bro to contain those moobs. protect your children!

i'm fat again. Not as big as I was before 2011, of course, but well over the happy weight maximum. The stack of fat pants that I kept in the corner now fits pretty well. You see the water belt in that top picture? that flap of belly fat hanging down below it usually isn't there. And I look like I have man-boobs now. ugh. nobody wants that. Normally a summer full of triathlon training would have put off the weight gain until the offseason. Instead I just kept gaining. I don't feel like I'm eating that bad. Maybe I'm drinking too much beer, but usually not more than 2 at a time. The really strange part is that I don't feel bad about it until I have to put on a suit for swim practice or see pictures like those. it's just something that has happened over the last several months. I'm numb to it. And the week of thanksgiving is not the time to start any kind of nutrition change, so I'll address it later. But it does need to be addressed and I need to stop hiding.

12 in 8 update
I did add 2 more marathons to the 12 in 8 list. Looks like we're going back to the Myrtle Beach marathon, my 3rd time running the full there. Looks like there are several friends going down this year so I'm looking forward to seeing some people. Also added the Skidaway Island marathon to the schedule. This race is in Savannah, so the family will get a week-long beach vacation while the kids are out of school in March. I think my mom is going to come down too, it's going to be a blast.

The Raleigh Runaround was cancelled, so those 2 marathons fell off of my schedule in October. That means I currently have 3 races completed, and nothing else on the schedule until march. 3 marathons in March and 2 in April might actually finish off the streak.

The four other marathons that I have yet to register for might not happen. I think the first Oak Island marathon in February on the NC Coast would be a good fit, but getting a weekend at the beach might not be worth it. The others are the triple to finish the streak from the Mainly Marathons crew, and those are expensive too. A trip to Oregon in September 2017 is also likely for the Boring Marathon outside of Portland, and maybe even trying the 100k at Javelina Jundred in Arizona in October. So I might save for 2 plane trips instead of 4 driving marathons. All opinions are welcome on that.

Cheers to a great november! and have a happy thanksgiving.