Turkey Trot Race Report and Thanksgiving Hockey

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving (in America, at least!).  Me, I got up at 4:30am to be on the road at 4:58 so I could run 6 miles before running a 5k.  Yes, indeedy, I am a freak.  But on the other hand, I knew I wouldn’t have time to do a long run on Saturday because of the hockey tournament Jamie was in. (Thanksgiving hockey tournaments…not my favorite. :/ )

I ran it pretty easy, because I didn’t want to be too tired to run with Jamie.  My average pace was an 11:32, but since the winds were coming from the NNW at a pretty brisk clip, I wasn’t unhappy with that.

Once I got home, I changed into a fresh set of clothes and then Jamie and I headed out to Detroit. We got there in plenty of time, and we even sat in the car for a while, staying warm.  I texted with my friend Ann, with whom I ran the Paczki Run in February…her whole family was doing the 5k, and we made sure to find each other and snap a pre-race picture of our hockey boys.

Because of the challenges we’d had at this race two years ago, Jamie and I were fully prepared to not worry about our time and just have fun.  We took  the requisite starting-line selfie. 🙂

They started the race at about 8:32, but because we weren’t in the first wave, we didn’t actually start until about 8:43.  There were about 20,000 people at this race–according to the announcer, it’s the largest Thanksgiving Day race in the country! Considering how challenging it was to navigate the bodies, I believe it.

Jamie and I took it nice and easy and just enjoyed the view and the experience. We ran down Woodward, over the new tracks for the M-1 Rail Project, and then we turned by Comerica Park to cut over to John R and cross the freeway.  Because of the M-1 construction, they couldn’t have runners in both directions on Woodward, so that gave us a different route than last time.  Jamie and I talked about the course and sights, and we enjoyed all the high-fives from the people lining Woodward, waiting for the big Detroit Thanksgiving Day parade.  That’s probably my favorite part of this race!

Around mile 1.5, just as we were coming off Woodward, we were surprised to find one of J.J.’s classmates running with us!  (With his dad, of course.) It was his first 5k race, and he was so excited. 🙂  It was adorable.

Around mile 2, we finally came to the spot we’d been waiting for: the cookie station!  Jamie and I had fond memories of that from last time, and we each eagerly stopped and took a cookie.  We made sure to get a running cookie shot.

The cookie was cheap, but it was still good. (Though I wish they’d had some water to wash it down!)

When we passed the 2 mile mark, Jamie surprised me by turning on the speed.  He worked really hard that last mile, and he actually beat me by about six seconds. 😉 I was really proud of him, and he was really proud of himself.

After the race, we stopped and bought some hot chocolate and mini muffins from some speed skaters that were doing some fundraising at the corner by Cobo Hall.  Gotta help those fellow skaters! Then we headed back to the car, because it was so cold and we were both pretty tired. Somehow or other, Jamie had gotten it in his head that he wanted to try coffee. One of our friends mentioned that they let their daughter, who is a year younger than Jamie, have decaf once in a while, because she likes the taste. I know I don’t remember liking coffee when I was that age, but he was really excited at the thought of going to Starbucks and getting a coffee, so I gave in.

It’s a peppermint mocha, and it’s decaf! Yes, I’m a horrible mother, I know. 😉 But he was so excited.

Later on, after I made the second of two pies, we headed to my moms for Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice hanging out with my sister and my mom, and of course we made time for a family photo.

I actually ate more than I expected to.  My mom had made vegetarian stuffing for some relatives of her fiancé, and I found I liked it quite a bit. Normally I’m not a fan of my mother’s stuffing, but don’t tell her that. 😉 I loaded my plate up with turkey, stuffing, some potatoes, green bean casserole (yum!), a little bit of corn pudding (never tried it before, but also yum!), and some carrots.

I always snap a picture of my food right before I eat, when I’m presented with situations like this where I don’t have the time to easily track it all. Tracking non-frequently eaten items can be difficult on the mobile app. It was all really good, and somehow, I found myself taking another helping.

But I eliminated the corn pudding this time. 😉 Afterwards, I had a half a piece of pumpkin and a half piece of pecan pie, since I made them and therefore knew they were awesome!

And of course I had Cool Whip on it. 😉

I don’t normally eat that much, but I had earned a ton of points that day, and hadn’t been able to eat lunch, so even though it was a lot of points, it was still within my plan for the day. The problem was, I had eaten 33 points just for one meal! I was so full by the time we left, it was unpleasant. There have been many Thanksgivings past where I have eaten like that, or worse, but it’s been a long time. I was a little disappointed in myself, but I just tried to remind myself that I had the points, and I had certainly earned t right to eat it all with all that running!

The next morning, we were up at 5 AM to be in Fraser by 7:15 AM. That’s an hour from my house, so we left at 6:15 in the morning with two boys and my very grumpy husband (who works nights for a reason 😛 ).

Thus began three days of hockey, in a tournament that was challenging to say the least. It was a USA vs Canada tournament, which meant we only played Canadian teams. Who, by the way, are really good at hockey.
:/  Sadly, our boys didn’t win a game, but they worked very hard, and kept the scores fairly close. In fact, of all the teams that didn’t win or tie against a Canadian team, we came in first, because our goal differential was the lowest. We were fourth out of eight American teams in our division!  And my son, though he wasn’t perfect by any means, definitely had some great moments.

Food-wise, it was not the easiest weekend, but I made do. The first day, because our game had been so early, we went to brunch afterward.  I got a veggie egg white omelette with Swiss cheese, which turned out to be too much cheese, plus fried potatoes. Was it ideal? No. Was it good? Oh, hell yes.

Day two, we went out to lunch, and I had a nice salad at Buffalo Wild Wings.  I had gotten up at 5:15 AM to run 4 miles before we left for the game, so I even allowed myself a glass of wine before 4 o’clock. (I have an unwritten “no wine before 4 PM” rule.) I had brought yogurt and cheese both days, and on Saturday I actually ate it when I got hungry in the afternoon. I was doing so well, and then…one of my hockey mom friends brought cupcakes for all the boys to celebrate her son’s birthday. Not just any cupcakes, either, but very fancy ones from a place called Just Baked. I’ve had them before, and holy cripes, are they good!  They’re expensive though, so she obviously only bought enough for one for each player. I joked with her that there should have been one for the team photographer, too. Well the joke was on me, because it turns out she had bought one extra for me!  😉 I wanted to resist but…

Oh. My. God. Who could resist those?! This is not my picture (I had to look for one online because I ate my cupcake so fast, I forgot to take a picture!), but mine was just like the one in the upper right (chocolate peanut butter) and it was so worth it. 🙂

The next morning, we had to be at the rink at 6:15 AM, which meant leaving the house at 5:15. Good God, people! There wasn’t a day over my holiday weekend that I didn’t get up before 5 AM. There was a lot of grumbling at the rink when we all arrived, because we parents were all tired and cranky by that time, but then one of the moms brought Krispy Kreme’s. Seriously, talk about a sabotaging weekend!  Because I had decided to up my points to 29 from the usual 26, and because of all the running, I actually was able to fit all that food within my points, but I was not feeling real confident about how my way and would go. And the results…

 I lost 1.4 pounds over Thanksgiving weekend. Go figure. 😛  This kind of begs the question as to whether or not I should be eating more food (remember, I increased my points by 3 every day).  When I first met my current Weight Watchers leader in the summer, and told her of my inability to lose the 10 pounds I’d gained, she insisted that I needed to eat more.  But when you have been heavy all your life, and worked so hard to get the weight off…eating more seems not only counterintuitive, but downright frightening.  I don’t know if that was really what helped me last week or not, but I figured I might as well give it one more week and see what happens.  So…for now, I’m sticking with 29 points per day.  We’ll see where it gets me!

Thanks so much for reading!!