Last night I had Thanksgiving Dinner #1 at my sister, Amanda and her husband, Rob's house. It was a fun evening with a lot of great food. I ended up staying overnight at their place and we were up early this morning for the Grouse Grind. After last year's very painful race, I had made a promise never to put myself through that again. But after hearing Amanda and Rob (lovingly) trash talk each other, I got really fired up. We each had our own pre-Grind breakfast strategies. Amanda and I stuck with what we know works; it was almond butter on toast for me and coffee with sweetner for Amanda. Rob took a holiday twist, grabbing a fistfull of leftover turkey as we were heading out the door.
Warm-up was practically non-existent with a gentle walk to the trail head. At this point I was having flashbacks of last year and was actually nervous! There was no time to really put to much thought into what I was about to do because as soon as we hit the starting post, Rob was gone! Amanda said he starts fast but I wasn't ready for this. Adam's tip to me was to "break their spirits early", but Rob was breaking mine! I didn't exactly have a spring in my step today, but I trudged by him after a few minutes, desperately trying to downplay my breathing. I kept saying to myself, "out of sight, out of mind" but I don't think Rob was too concerned with me. There was another battle going on behind that I didn't witness until the end. Amanda is strong and steady at the start and holds her pace. She caught Rob at the halfway mark and it was a close finish. Here are our unofficial Thanksgiving Grind results:
Lauren: 34:56
Amanda: 41: 25 (2 minute PB!)
Rob: 42:00
I think it might have been an even closer spousal race is we were to factor in Rob's breakfast choice. Turkey burps cannot feel good!
Dessert tonight!
2 comments:
Hey Lauren,
What was the distance of your Thanksgiving Grind run? Those look like 10K times, and if so, I love how you can run 34:56 and say you had no spring in your step!
I wish I could do that!
Hi Luke
It actually wasn't quite a 10km run....more like a 3km "hike" up a mountain, climbing 2800 ft! Now that you mention it though, most times do seem similar to what we could do for a 10km running race, but I find the Grind to feel quite different (probably because there are 2,900 steps!) It's definitely not something I would want to put myself through on a regular basis. But, it is a fun challenge for sure.
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