Tweeting And Trotting

Happy belated Thanksgiving!  I'm back in Hilton Head to spend the weekend with my family.

I took a half day on Wednesday, headed home to pack up, and gobbled down this salad of spinach, goat cheese, pear, walnuts, and vanilla balsamic, before hitting the road for the 3+ hour drive to Hilton Head.

Traffic wasn't to terrible, and I arrived in time for dinner with my fam, which was a nice bean pasta soup my mom made.

And some easy cresent rolls on the side.

Oh and we got into the pumpkin cheesecake early.

We turned it fairly early because we had to be up early on Thanksgiving for my Turkey Trot!  After being indecisive about running and racing ALL YEAR long, I decided to go ahead and do this race, since I had a great time running it last year.  Last year I was already entrenched in marathon training and ran the 10K, but this year I opted for the 5K, deciding I wasn't quite ready for 6+ miles just yet.  3.1 sounded fine though.

I had the typical pre-race breakfast.

It was much colder this year, so I was kind of bundled up pre-race and cold in my shorts!

My parents were good sports for hanging out in the cold with me!

I think the cofee helped!  We amused ourselves by watching many people ready to run in costume.

We loved this guy in the full turkey suit!

I really had no plan for this race.  I know my running has been sporatic all year, and looking at my only other two 5K times, I estimated I'd fall somewhere in between 33 and 27 minutes- my other two finish times.  I guessed I'd finish in about 30 minutes...  I really didn't care.  I actually forgot my Garmin in my jacket, so I didn't even time myself.  Really, I was just out to have fun and get a 3 mile run in before consuming mass amounts of Thanksgiving food so I didn't put any pressure on myself to PR.

I underestimated myself.  I felt pretty good on the out and back course, and just ran as fast as I was comfortable with.  I ended up finishing with a gun time of 27:33, which is a 5K PR for me (my previous best is 27:48)!  I also love that this race gives medals!  Fun to add another one to my race bling :)

After some water and a small hunk of bagel, we snapped some quick pics with the blow-up turkey, and headed home for breakfast.

My mom whipped up a frittata with goat cheese, spinach, pepper, and mushrooms.  We had that and leftover crescent rolls with Nutella, and some fruit.

While eating we saw in the paper that Old Navy was open, so we headed over there to check it out after breakfast.  I got a pair of jeans and a pair of running crops for pretty cheap!

Mini-shopping trip done, we headed home to start the turkey/stuffing prep.  A little story behind my turkey, I won it from EarthFare (Huntersville) on Twitter!  It was a fresh, organic, veg fed fella.  Thank you EarthFare!

Clyde looked on with interest as my mom cleaned it.

Once the bird was prepped and in the oven, we decided to head out on a walk on the plantation trails to enjoy the beautiful weather.  It was in the low 60s, sunny, and generally gorgeous.

I love these bridges over the marsh to the island in the plantation, gorgeous...

About 3 miles covered, we headed back and actually changed into bathing suits to go to the pool for a dip!  The pool is heated, and it was a little chilly, but not too bad!

Mom and I finished making dinner after our dip.  The EarthFare turkey came out great!

We made turkey, stuffing, sweet potato, mashed potato, mac and cheese, green beans with almonds, and cranberry (from the can- love that stuff).

With more pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Thanksgiving is by far Clyde's favorite holiday.  He knows the word "turkey" because it's his favorite food.  He made out like a bandit.

A great day was had by all, even Greg, who was stuck in Houston and didn't make it home.  He was invited to a friend's house for some food and had a good time too.  We're planning on a mini Thanksgiving of our own next week.

Hope your Thanksgiving was as great as mine!  I'm thankful for all of you who read and support me, you guys rock!