Looking For A Few Good Halloween Ideas

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My nephew's revenge for the vegetarian meal I made to counteract all the sugarYikes! The spooky season is upon us and Blair and I have yet to decide what our theme will be this year. We take great pride in being "that house" that always has the cheesy Halloween theme going on. In years past we've done everything from hauling in tons of sand to make a beach for a pirate theme to creating a Frankenstein monster operated by pulleys that sat up when kids approached, scaring them to death. (God, I love this holiday! Only time I can be intentionally mean to kids and no one calls me on it.) Headless horseman. Probably my favorite costume we've ever done.

Given our shared love of the The Walking Dead tv series, I'm leaning toward a zombie theme. But I'm open to suggestion. The only thing we won't do is political (scary as that may be). We like to keep it traditional with monsters and blood, eyeballs and gore. 

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Some years we keep it sweet...Dena

Running, Recovery, and Choosing A Race

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Facebook friends are aware of some recent race waffling on my part. I've been signed up to run the Richmond marathon, Saturday November 10th, since the early part of the year. All training this summer has been centered around prepping for the race. Although recent training has been sporadic with Italy and the Hinson Lake 24-hour run, I think I'm still on course to run a decent marathon. I may not PR, but I still have a good shot at coming in with a Boston Qualifying time. 

The waffling comes from discovering that many friends have signed up to run the Crooked Road 24-hour race. This is the 24-hour run I did last year, my first ultra. The run is the weekend AFTER the Richmond Marathon. I surprised myself with how much I wanted to run this race. I just love the whole feel/friendship of a 24-hour run. It's a completely different experience from a marathon and, in all honesty, I'm a bit burnt out running marathons. 

I briefly considered running both but reconsidered after reading the thinly veiled "What new breed of moron are you?" comments posted by loving and--one hopes--concerned friends. So it comes down to having to chose one race over another. 

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Hinson Lake 24-Hour Run: The Recap

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Number of hours on course: 16 hours, 33 minutes

Number of laps completed: 41

Total mileage: 62

I started crying around lap 37. 

Not an all out sobbing. More just a few silent tears streaking down my face combined with some sniffles. By this time it was around 11 pm and Blair was with me on the course, wearing the headlamp so I could see where I was going. My left ankle felt like it was broken and my right hip flexor, for which I'd received a massage around 7 pm when it locked on me, was acting up again. Soreness I could take, but my ankles felt... scary bad. Like maybe I was doing permanent damage to them. It had taken me 40 minutes to complete the last mile and a half lap. I was so done. 

Beside me in the dark, Blair either couldn't see that I was crying or--and this was brilliant on his part if he did know--he ignored it. "You're fine," he said, over and over. "You've got this. Keep going." 

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