A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR!! Drumstick Dash Indy Race Recap

WHAT A WEEK!  I have had a ton going on during the past week, but I am truly thankful for all of it.  Today, you will get a recap of my workouts, the Drumstick Dash, Thanksgiving festivities, and another trip to the Colts game.

Posing pre-race!

Let's start off with my workouts.  For the first time in 3 weeks, I was actually able to get in some valuable training. I started with a quick run last Sunday just to get my legs back under me and then I had the Drumstick Dash on Thursday.  This Sunday I was able to get in another 2 mile run with some speed work to loosen my legs back up after resting from the Dash.  I am back in it for the training and ready to pick up my speed.

The most exciting part of the week regarding fitness was definitely the Drumstick Dash.  I was so pumped to be considered a VIP, park close, and have a nice warm place to hang out before and after.  We arrived early and parked to walk to the VIP tent.  When we walked in they checked our names and gave us some free gloves from Franklin College.  There was a nice spread from Einstein Bagels, but we took them and saved them for later.  I didn't want to have a full stomach to run on.  I had a bite of a bagel Mrs. Re-Dan-imation decided to have and sipped on a bottle of water to stay hydrated.  I also made sure to hit the porta potty before I left the tent.  

We did a little hanging around the tent, saw a couple of the celebrity runners come in a hang out, and milled around a little bit.  I was aware that I was supposed to hang around the front of the run to be announced as a Fund-Racer, but it was a little confusing and I wanted to make sure I was in the right corral for my time rather than getting recognition for raising money.  I started the long walk back to my corral and started getting myself pumped up for my run.  I snapped a quick selfie as I was waiting in the mass of people and got my music going in my ears.  To be honest, I didn't really hear much that was going on after that, I just tuned in to my thoughts.

At 9:00 the celebrities got a 3 minute head start.  They have their own competition and get out in front of the elite runners before they begin so they can get over to the right and out of the way.  The crowd took a few steps forward and then we were in a waiting game again.  This is obviously my biggest race, so the delay was expected but was also new to me.  I just tried to stay loose as I waited for the crowd to begin moving.  We began our slow crawl to the start line after just a couple minutes. According to my finishing clock time in relation to my actual moving time it took me 12 minutes to get to the start line.  It's ok though, I was enjoying myself.

If you look really close, you can see the starting line.

I finally crossed the line, started my Garmin and focused on avoiding others and working towards getting to my race pace.  For those of you that are not runners, there is 1 rule I beg for you to follow...IF YOU ARE WALKING, PLEASE KEEP TO THE BACK!!  I may not be the fastest person in the world, but I am running the entire race and do NOT plan on walking at all.  Let's just say, I spent the first 2.5 miles of the race dodging people roughly every 20 steps.  I shouldn't complain and just get used to it.  The Mini in May will be much more congested and I will probably be dodging people the entire race.  The people around me were fun to look at.  There were people on the sides of the road cheering for people.  The Turkey mascot was heading back toward the starting line giving people high fives and there were photographers in the middle of the road on step stools.  I actually saw the first photographer stick out his hand to stop a couple of girls that were LITERALLY getting ready to run him over.  They barely missed clipping the feet of his stool.  The atmosphere was happy and you could tell the families were all thankful to be there together.

I hit a pretty decent stride about a quarter mile in and decided anything over a 13:00 minute mile was unacceptable today.  I kept a watchful eye on my Garmin and did pretty great with this until about mile 3 that consisted of a gradual climb for probably 200 meters.  That sounds like nothing, but I could feel a little burn in my legs.  I pushed through and the other side of the incline was a nice reward.  I accelerated on the down and coasted through the next little bit.  Mile 3.5 to about mile 4 was a mental struggle as I had only run that distance once before.  At about 3.5 miles in I passed one of the firefighters that was walking the course in full gear (70 pounds of pack and oxygen).  I patted him on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up.  I knew I was good to go from there.  I puffed up my chest a little and maintained my goal pace.

Photo finish...Ignore the clock time, it's from official start, not my start time.

When I hit mile 4, I really picked up my pace.  I knew I had a half mile left and that I had enough left in the tank to push a little harder.  I rooted the people on next to me and told them to finish strong.  I turned the corner onto the final stretch with my watch at about 4.35 miles.  I could already tell the course was longer than 4.5.  It didn't matter, I kept pushing (while looking for Mrs. Re-Dan-imation). Another camera man was in front of me and I gave him a few poses as I ran by (still waiting on their pictures to be posted to see if I made any of them).  I pushed even harder towards the finish line and raised my hands in the air as I saw my wife with her phone up to take my picture.  I finished in a time of 58:44 with an average pace of 12:37 per mile.  I definitely beat my goal of 13:00 per mile.  I was pumped.  As I walked past the finish line, I rejected the solar blanket and headed to get a banana, some water, and some chocolate milk.  I met the Mrs. in the street and we headed back to the tent where I was able to grab another snack and some coffee.  I think I had a smile on my face the whole time.

We made the trip home and after I showered and changed we headed to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner as my mom and brothers were in St. Louis celebrating with my extended family.  I had a nice plate of food and some desserts, but I didn't over indulge.  We got to watch a bunch of football and did some exciting Black Friday shopping in the overly crowded location of the living room (online shopping is much less stressful).  We finally headed home to stay around 8 and relaxed for the rest of the night.  I was THANKFUL for this entire day.

We decorated the house for Christmas on Friday and watched basketball at 2 different locations on Saturday.  Sunday we had big plans again to head down to Indy to watch the Colts game.  Myself, the Mrs., my brother in-law, and mother in-law headed down to watch the game.  We had a great time, had great seats, and our picture even made it up on the JumboTron.  Oh and by the way, we got to see a win this time with Hasselback at the helm.  It was a fun day and I am definitely thankful to the people we were able to buy our tickets from as well as for my in-laws for inviting us to join in.  Go Colts!

And now on to the weigh in.  This week, I tipped the scales at 259.4 lbs.  That's a gain from last week of 0.4 lbs.  But, let's look at the rest of the numbers.  Last week my body fat percentage was 36.7% and this week was 36.4%.  That means I lost a half pound of fat.  So Here's how I am taking it.  I lost a half pound of fat and went up 0.4 pounds overall so I gained 9 tenths of a pound of muscle this week.  I refuse to lie to myself about this weight loss progress.  I am looking at the bright side of this as the numbers did really work out in my favor.  I plan on getting in all 3 workouts this week and look forward to seeing the number on the scale next week.  Until then...Food. Feet. Water. Repeat!