Thanksgiving Wrap-up

What a great break for the Thanksgiving holiday! Three items I want to discuss in this post:

1) Philadelphia Marathon

On Sunday, November 21, I ran my first marathon! Ahh! My nerves were crazy up until race day. I took a bus to Philly the day before and crashed at my old roommate's apartment she shares with her husband. I actually met with some old friends from college who were in town that evening too, got to bed pretty late (midnight roughly), and could not go to sleep for the life of me. I must have had only 5 hours of sleep.

At dawn, I made my way to the starting line and joined 23,000 other people participating in the race. In the course of four months of training, I've endured illness, injuries, and a black toenail. All ailments that are common to the endurance runner - these risks are accepted when a person decides to train for and run a marathon. Regarding injuries, I've had minor ones like a "snapping" Achilles' tendon caused by overtraining and numb feet from what I presume to be tight socks and running shoes. My most pressing injury, however, was inflammation/frictional stress of my iliotibial band OR "IT Band Syndrome". It occurred during a Sunday long run about 5 weeks prior to race day. It was debilitating, significantly slowed down my pace, and stopped me from running for a few weeks. It scared the heck out of me. My physical therapist helped me with some exercises I could do to loosen the IT band and cleared me to run the marathon - yet to proceed with caution. She warned that any sharp pains should not be ignored and that I could potentially tear a muscle/tendon along my left hip and leg.
 

With all that baggage, I embraced the challenge along with the crowd of other courageous folk all running for different reasons and causes. I was in so much PAIN my last few miles but the Philly crowd cheering gave me a bolt of energy to push through. For the record, running brings me a lot of joy. I find solace in my runs as it's an outlet for any angst I might have and I enjoy my moments of reflection. Joining running groups here and there can also be fun too since no one person should spend too much time with their own thoughts! I'm also the type who appreciates activities that deliver health benefits so that positive reinforcement has its psychological influence too.



The picture below is me taking my first ice bath. It SUCKED. Your muscles breakdown during a marathon so to ensure speedy recovery and prevent sustained muscle inflammation and soreness, it's advised that elite athletes and even regular joes (like yours truly) have an ice bath a few hours after pushing themselves to new physical limitations. Multiple buckets of ice and straight "cold" water is in the bath tub. My spine and arms were very much clenched and frozen in that position for the duration of the 12 minute ice bath.

Now, one might wonder - why? Why would you do this, you fool? I find myself defending my motive behind this often, especially to my family. To be honest, as painful as this whole ordeal was - it was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. Visualizing a goal, making a training plan, working towards it for months, and  finally accomplishing it feels wonderful. It's a great boost to my self esteem and gives me the sense that I can accomplish anything else I set my mind to. I've also inspired people close to me to run and even that is a reward worth celebrating. I finished in 4 hours and 25 minutes - which is at a 10 minute 6 second per mile pace. I plan to train to get my time down (and qualify for the Boston Marathon), inspire more runners, meet some cool people, and raise money for a charity the next time I race.

2) PC UPDATE - Nominated (check)

The day before Thanksgiving, I received an email that confirmed my nomination as a Peace Corps Volunteer!! I was and still am ecstatic. I'm missing plenty of details from my recruiter (i.e. region location, program selection, training requirements, etc.) but good news is good news. I plan to call the recruiting office tomorrow to see if any more information can be shared. Also, I will patiently wait to receive my medical review packet so I can make my best effort to expedite what I expect to be the most laborious part of the Peace Corps application process. We shall see...



3) Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is indisputably my favorite holiday. I think its a wonderful tradition to bring those that I hold close to my heart together and attack some unsuspecting, delicious food on the table. As with every year, I made my run to Monteleone's Bakery to pick up their amazing pumpkin pie. I should have kept it to one dessert since it seems that the cheesecake I got stole the show from the annual pumpkin pie. :-(

I also picked up a game called Taboo for a post-eating activity. My family and I divided into Team A and Team B - or better put the "A-Team" and "Team Booty", which was really guys vs girls, respectively. Team Booty won best out of three. Taboo was a lot of fun and made the post-eating part of our gathering pretty entertaining. I think this game will be a new holiday favorite for us.

Jim Gaffigan, a comedian, tweeted - "I’m thankful that we are only mandated to be thankful 1 day a year. Can you imagine being grateful year round?" It does seem silly to have the basis of this holiday revolve around dedicating one day to be grateful but I still appreciate it nonetheless... I mean two government work days off? What can make a working man more thankful? Haha! 

Seriously though, as I always am, I'm thankful for the overall good health my family and friends have and the abundance of love and amazing people I have in my life. Thank you so very much!