Liftoff

I missed the usual group run because our extended family headed to Legoland to celebrate my niece's birthday. Like most of life, it was a mixture of human bonding, apathy, tedium and fun. I got to put Anna in the stocks, which was pretty cool.

The last week was a crazy scramble. We hosted my wife's parent for Christmas, and I offered to handle the turkey, stuffing and gravy. I was going to document every stage of the prep, but after photographing the stuffing prep I got too busy.

I keep gaining new appreciation for my Mom. I can't believe what a beast she was to handle that and more for multiple holidays year after year.

AM: 4 miles.

PM: 6 miles at lunch with Quint.

So - I'm grossly out of shape. I'm ready to start climbing out of my rut, but it's going to take some time. I am looking to run some 5ks this winter, and avoid the usual races I repeat every winter (Gasparilla, etc). Just need something new.

AM: 5 miles.

PM: 9 miles with Forerunners. Track closed again for the holidays. Scheduled workout was 400s with descending rest, but doing that workout on the Pinellas Trail, at dusk with the local Walking Dead extras about is no recipe for success. Lee, Steve, Ched and I settled on a modest tempo run. Lee and Steve are both recovering from illness and injury, and I'm a bathtub short of Jim Morrison's Paris vacation of '71. Last night Anna slapped my stomach and asked me if I had a baby in my belly.

Our goal was 4 miles @ 6:30 pace. We ran 6:27, 6:28, 6:18, 6:09, which I'll call MP. No great shakes, but it's a weird winter with a constant dew point of 70+. It seems like everyone is injured or burned out.

One cool thing about our run today was that Steve led us out to the South Pasadena waterfront. I've never run down there, and it was beautiful.

A couple other things I am liking are:

1) My wife and I have an annual tradition of watching the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I don't end every night with Merchant Ivory or Downton Abbey... but I do think the writing in P&P is out of this universe.

2) I kind of want to join Twitter to follow this account. Some favorites:

"uncle lando said my helmet made me look like a depressed lampshade and then everyone laughed and high-fived him i hate this family so much"

"mom please don't even pretend you know what I'm going through right now also we are out of conditioner"

"holden caulfield knows what it means to commit to a bold choice of headgear and i respect that"

"this elliot smith song really makes me think of darth vader"

AM: 4 miles.

PM: Planned lunch run preempted by company lunch.

AM: 8 miles.

PM: 3 miles, 2 with Elise on her bike.

I'm not great at resolutions, but running resolutions are easier (to come up with at least). For 2016:

• Find ways to run with my girls as often as possible.
• Run with at least 10 new people.
• Be a better friend to the people I already run with.
• Run 5,000 miles.
• Run 3 PRs.

Easy! Happy New Year!

Functional running today.

AM: 3 miles, 2 with Elise on her bike, and 1 with Anna.

PM: 12 miles. Drove to Publix, parked, ran around. Came home, dropped car off at mechanic. Ran home.

1 mile. Mostly because I was too busy, but a little because I was too lazy.

We spent the day at car dealerships. Allison and I agreed to hold off car shopping until the New Year. I assumed that meant February or March, but I was wrong.

We got a minivan. Previously, we each had a Civic- I fear a minivan is another rung down the ladder of cool. We've somehow made it work up to now with our carpool, but that would have ben impossible next year.

One dealership had a 2005 Civic on display with over 425,000 miles. I'm at 127k on mine and fully intend to see 250.