Ugh, what a holiday season it's been.  I had a blast, but boy am I happy it's over.
The Thursday before Christmas, 5 of us (Mike's parents, Brian, Mike and I) piled into the parent's SUV and trudged out to Nashville, TN.  The drive wasn't too bad except for Brian's section where it poured the whole time.  By the time I took over, around midnight...it had finally cleared up and we managed to get in to Kathy and Karl's place around 3am.

With a 16 miler scheduled for Saturday, I decided to sleep in and rest all of Friday.  I ended up spending most of the day with the niece and nephew while the guys got to work on the floor.   I had originally planned on helping...but with 4 guys (all with way more experience than me) all working in the same room, it got crowded quick.  I think I just mostly got in the way.  This kinda continued all weekend, and I ended up only nailing down one row of flooring in the whole house.  Oh well, I can't complain about not being put to work! :)

The 16 miler...well, it kinda sucked.  Karl showed me the route he usually runs which is about 4 miles...so I assumed I'd just run that same loop about 4 times.  I walked out the door in my t-shirt and pants and immediately walked into a wind gust.  Thinking it was cold, I went back in and put on a long sleeved shirt and gloves.  Big mistake!!  It was actually in the 60s outside, the wind was just so strong, it felt way colder.  By the time I got a mile down the road, I was burning up.  I turned around and headed back to the house to strip and try again. 

I did 3 of the loops that Karl showed me and extended each of them by running past the house each time.  The out part of the loop was fine, with the wind at my back and running mostly downhill.  Then I'd turn around and have 25 mph winds in my face and running uphill most of the way.  By the time I was at mile 10 I was ready to cry.  Around that time, I stopped back at the house for a pee break and to fill up my water bottles, and wow was it hard to convince myself to go back out.  Then again, the house was full of people all trying to get things done, and furniture piled up on the back porch...so there wasn't really anywhere to rest either.  So out I went!

The last 5.5 miles took over an hour, but I finished it.  And I felt so accomplished afterwards!!  Well, accomplished and tired.  I ended up napping the afternoon away at the house we were borrowing from Kathy and Karl's friends.

On Monday, I forced myself out again to run the 50 minute run on our schedule.  I knew that I would probably not run on Christmas day, and we were driving back to DC the following day...so I couldn't slack off too long.  I managed to get in a little over 5 miles and averaged 10 min miles.  Not too bad considering it was so soon after my longest run evar!!

My prediction came true and I didn't get any workouts in Tuesday or Wednesday...which I severely regret now because I managed to get myself sick on Thursday and was out of commission for another week an a half.  That meant no runs and no workouts until January 6th!!  Blargh!!  Look how empty this is!! 

It also meant being sick on New Years Eve.  No worries though, we still ended up doing our yearly ritual of going to Sam's house and playing board games.  This year, I think everyone brought a bottle of champagne and we all proceeded to get drunk off of it.   Then I found myself a comfy corner, wrapped myself in a blanket and watched my husband get trounced in board games by the half-Asian team :)

So, besides being sick, I had a wonderful Holiday season.  Getting to watch my niece really get Christmas this year was super fun...she kept counting down the days, and made a special Christmas plate for Santa with cookies and hot chocolate and carrots for the reindeer (we had Zoe nom nom the carrots and put the ends on the plate to make it look like animals had eaten them).  The kids' faces on Christmas morning were adorable, and the fact that they could barely make it through all their presents without taking a nap (actually Nathan had to be put down for a nap with 3 or 4 presents untouched) was hilarious.  That's what you get when you invite the Grandparents.