So, I got Bob, Colin, Todd, Charli, Kara, Jesse, and Tricia to do the race. Except for Colin, Todd, and Jesse, we were all in costume. I walked in to register wearing my pimp suit and my big pink pimp hat to a room of people in running clothes. I got rid of the hat pretty fast. Couldn’t really do anything about the suit, it was what I was wearing to run. But, Charli and Kara had full Eeyore and Tigger suits. There were I think two other people in costume. One was a wench, and there was a kid dressed as a cat.

Anyway, it was fun. Even went on a very muddy bike ride with Bob afterwards. At one point the wind was so strong, that it literally stopped us on our bikes. We couldn’t pedal, we couldn’t do anything but be stopped. It went by so quickly that we didn’t have to get off or anything, but it was something else. Pretty cool, never experienced that before. But I was pretty beat. I couldn’t do the uphills except for one. The downhills were so awesome, but with the cold and the wind, it became quite the challenge. It’s a weird feeling when you can’t feel your fingers so that you don’t know if you’re braking or not. Good thing my brakes squeal. I have to get that fixed.

Oh, yeah, during the race, I again came so close to quitting or asking Bob (who ran with me the whole way) to slow down or stop. But I couldn’t. I figured, he was crazy enough to do that with me, I should at least suck it up. And I did. AND, the bonus was, I shaved off 1 minute from my previous time! Yay! Still plenty to work on for next year, but it’s a sweet ending. I am still contemplating on doing the Cranberry Run, but it’s 4.5 miles on Thanksgiving day. It’s going to be cold.

Anyway, here are the results. If I had only known, I would’ve let 7 people pass me. Oh well.

I got 6 people (still working on one more, so maybe 7) to race in costume this Sunday for the Halloween race in town. I’ll wear either my pimp costume or my cyclops costume, and the others will be Yoda, Darth Vader, Eeyore, Tigger, killer in Scream, a biker, and I don’t know who Todd will be.

Anyone else I can convince to come in costume? It’ll be such a riot!!!

So Boston now holds the record for the most pumpkins lit all together. Boo-hoo. They came up with a measly 30K. I mean, that’s nothing to be proud of from a city like Boston. Keene comes up with 24K and it has the population of BU. Big deal. Besides, our pumpkins didn’t even make the count and we brought 10 friggin heavy pumpkins! Darn the 8pm official counting.

I’m not a big fan of the traffic during pumpkin fest and all the crowds during the event, but I do find it amazing how such a small town can pull off something that big. We were expecting some 70K people. That’s almost triple our population! It brings good business to the city without too much damage, so I’m all for it. Besides, the locals get to do fun stuff during the day and the day before so we don’t really have to go and fight the crowds that night unless we want to or we have guests that want to. This last one was my third and I still thought it was fun despite the crowds and the cold. Parking was a rape though. My boss was telling me that he had to pay $5 just to park in our parking lot at work. Ha.

Speaking about my boss. Clarification on the promotion. It was just a step promotion. From a I to a II. So, not much difference, really. It’s still a junior position, and money-wise, I’m still pretty much in the same boat. But, more than the money, there was nothing more rewarding than a few words saying I was doing a great job. I’ve been working hard(er) since to prove them right. So to the future managers-to-be, there’s your answer to productivity. I bet having temperature control wouldn’t hurt either.

All my excuses are starting to get old. I just haven’t been in blogging mode at all. I’ve been enjoying doing other stuff too much to sit and write even though it only takes a few minutes. I haven’t even set up the whole email thing so that I could send it from my phone. And I’ve been too busy at work to do it, even at lunch. Pretty pathetic.

But, I’m a year older now, since about a month ago. Life’s been pretty good. Got a promotion at work despite feeling like I was becoming a non-performer. But despite all that, I guess they still think I’m doing okay, or better than okay.

Haven’t been doing well with my training though. I went to a race this Saturday - big mistake - and I came so close to quitting. I didn’t, which is good, but it wasn’t pretty. I had to walk maybe 4 times, and it was only for 3 miles too. Running in 30-degree weather made it really hard to take in air. My shoes needed to be replaced. I was exhausted and needed sleep. But mostly, I just didn’t have the training for it. “Your body only does what you train it to do”. These days, it’s been trained to eat.

Funny, in Mexico three weeks ago, our hosts were giving Glenn such a hard time because I out-ate him everywhere and everytime. Oh, and they had the BEST breakfast buffet in our hotel. I had YAKULT!!!! Two bottles every morning, with re-fried beans, eggs, bacon, fruits. I had tons of kiwi and papaya. That’s just breakfast. Oh, and they had tacos with slices of beef. Mmm… so good.

Lastly, my mom’s in town for the pumpkin festival this week. Dinner parties and get-togethers galore. It’s fun. And now, I rest. GOod night.