Before the Frostbite 10 miler, I did a little visit to my ancestral homeland for Christmas. Once there, I handed over loot to my neice and nephew.
As can be somewhat seen in Danielle’s photo (the pink bag on the center right), our gifts were contained in hand-crafted canvas bags. Each child received a bag designed by Kathy and manufactured (mostly) by yours truly. By manufactured, I mean that I ironed on the decals where Kathy told me to put them after being shown the proper use of a standard household iron. We then put goodies inside the bags, mostly books and/or stuffed animals. Danielle is the real winner of the gift sweepstakes since she loves bags. I can’t wait until she grows up to see how many purses she will have in her closet!
I headed down to Forest Park on Saturday morning for the St. Louis Track Club’s frostbite 10 miler. I was the solo representative from Team Flash, due to the other team members’ previous committments, so I had to put on a reasonable showing. But this was going to be a pure training run for me – keep the heart rate in line and run it as a 90 minute exercise. So my goal was to knock out nine minute miles. This isn’t easy – the gun goes off and I feel like I should give it my all. But no!
The run was extremely successful for me – I finished in 87:54, keeping my heart rate at an average of 157. That’s a little higher then I would typically have during a training run, but the 8:48 pace is a little faster then I would normally run. The weather wasn’t too nasty, 27 degrees, but it was a bit windy. At least I thought it was only a bit windy. We did a two loop course. From mile 2 to 3 and mile 7 to 8 the course went up two inclines and exposed us to some serious gale force winds! Cold city. Other then those two miles, the race was pretty nice.
Again, the rabbits came out for the run. A total of 420 runners ran and I finished behind 230 of them. My final placing was 180th among the men (out of 231 male runners). But I could have easily run ten minutes faster so I award myself 100th place (which is where I would have finished). That’s legit right? Oh well, I’ll take the PR and note that I should be able to beat it pretty easily when I run another 10 miler.
After the run, I went down to Kathy’s family for more gift giving. Here’s our nephew opening a gift with our bag in the background:
We had a collection of Doctor Suess books in that bag, including such beloved characters as the Sneetches, Horton, and the Lorax. After Aidan opened it, he exclaimed “There’s nothing in here!” So those books didn’t exactly hit the gift spot 
. But that didn’t matter to me – I’m all about his childhood development and he’ll eventually like the good Doctor and learn to juggle or I’m not doing my job as an uncle.
This song will probably show itself on my iPod during tomorrow’s hill repeats. While it might not be his best work, I love the video.
I think you got the wrong picture I only see gifts. I want to see the nephew.
Keep up the blogs – I love them.
The pictures of the kids are sooo cute! I love the bag idea. Good job at your race and I agree with your philosophy of awarding yourself the time you would have run if you were going all out.
I agree with your gift giving philosophy. Homemade bags and books are the best. Nice work at the Frostbite, and yes, you can give yourself extra credit for the training run.
Wow, you are right – that 10 miler IS a fast race if you finished that far behind with a 87 min effort. Crazy.
That is so funny that Dr. Suess books constitute “nothing”. You must have neglected to include “Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose”. A moose book would surely have won the lil’ guy over!