Weekend Recap: Say Hello To My Little Friend!

Monday is always a weekend recap for me, and once again, it was pretty memorable. Scarface, stale Twinkies and a solid marathon. What more could I ask for?

First real quick, I ran some races this weekend. Yesterday, I ran the Tampa Gasparilla Marathon and was really happy with my race. On Saturday, I ran the Gasparilla 15K and the Gasparilla 5K. I was OK with the 15K, but pretty disappointed with the 5K.

I Think Tiff Might Kill Me For This
My flight was early (6:45 a.m.) on Friday morning, so I wouldn’t be around to help with the kids getting ready for school. Tiff normally sets her alarm for 5:30 a.m. and has everything rolling when I get in from my run at 6:30 a.m. I leave with Jack at 7:25 and she takes Benjamin and Ava to school. Since she was getting all three kids ready and leaving early with them to get Jack to school, I didn’t know what time she needed to set her alarm for, so I asked.

She said she only needed an hour to get everybody and out the door, which struck me as odd. She sets her alarm for an hour before anybody other than me even gets out of bed every day! She’s working hard every day at 5:30, or so I thought. Apparently, she likes to hit the snooze button for 45 minutes! For reals? I set my alarm, it’s a 10-minute snooze and I get out of bed a minute after it goes off. If I spend more than six minutes, I might not have time for my run. Is 45 minutes normal?

I was shocked and cracking up. She was laughing too, telling me that not everybody has as much energy as me. Maybe I just steal some of hers? Don’t sell her short, though — she works extremely hard and is an amazing mother and wife. I won’t put up with anybody stereotyping her as a lazy housewife, because she works way harder than me. But she snoozes for 45 minutes every day!

While we were laughing, she told me, “Don’t you DARE put this on Facebook!”

Don’t worry, babe … I didn’t!

Good Luck/Bad Luck Flying, Pt. 1
I went to Tampa with a runner friend of mine named Rachel. I booked seats 15A and 15C with the hope that nobody would take 15B and we’d get some space. On the first leg of our flight, we lucked out! Yeah! I was bummed, though, because we were on Frontier Airlines — they advertise that they have DirecTV on their flights, so we chose them and risked a shorter layover to have the TV. But they charge $6 per segment, which the other airlines with TV that I’ve been on (Delta, Jet Blue) don’t do. So I wasn’t very happy.

On the second leg, a large man who didn’t smell very good sat between us. And the people in front of us had some food that really stank. And somebody had gas with about 30 minutes left on the flight. And they made me check my carry-on bag because I couldn’t jam it into the metal sizer at the gate. Never mind that It fit in the overhead on the first leg. Or that I was squeezing it down and might have made it before she told me to quit. I got to check it. And of course, it got torn up a little bit.

Between that and DirecTV and the fact that they don’t even give you peanuts, I’m not a big Frontier fan. I don’t intend to fly them again.

Say Hello To My Little Friend!
I am no longer in the “I’ve Never Seen Scarface” club. I watched Scarface on DVD on my laptop on the flight from Denver to Tampa. I can’t believe I had never seen that. What a great movie!

Say Hello To My Little Friend!
I got to meet my biggest supporter, Jen Morgan, on Friday night at a dinner at Macaroni Grill with a bunch of other runners. Well, she’s figuratively my biggest supporter. Literally, she’s probably my smallest supporter. She’s been a great help, though, and I went over that last week, but a weekend recap wouldn’t be complete with mentioning that I got to meet her!

Ultimate Bachelor Pad
We stayed at Rachel’s brother’s house in suburban Tampa. It was an absolute bachelor pad. Nice leather couch in the front room when you walk in. Old leather couch with cracked cushions downstairs by the TV. Weight bench partially blocking the TV. Master bathroom is torn up and out of service, but the guest bathroom is OK. Well, aside from the toilet handle you have to jiggle so the water doesn’t run forever. No soap or body wash in the shower, though. Good thing I brought my own!

Stale Twinkies in the cabinet (don’t how Twinkies get stale, but they did). Pop and liquor in the fridge. Porch light doesn’t work. Lights aren’t hooked up to switches. There’s a motorcycle in the garage getting fixed up. The rain gutter above the garage door needs to be repaired. But there are two things that are working perfectly fine … the pool and hot tub in the back yard.

It was amazing.

Would I Trade In-N-Out For Cracker Barrel? Tough Call
Y’all know how much I love In-N-Out, but I also really love Cracker Barrel. And I think the closest one is about 400 miles from my house. I don’t get the opportunity to eat there very often, so when I get the chance, I take it. I always get Momma’s Pancake Breakfast. Always. I’ve had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I was in Wichita one time — I’d run the Kansas City Marathon that day and I was running the Wichita Marathon in the morning. I ordered Mama’s Pancake Breakfast for dinner, and when the waiter brought it out, he asked in his Southern drawl, “Ya ready ta get yer belly full?” As if! Did he know who he was talking to?

Anyways, here’s the pancakes from Saturday:

Quick Zensah Shout-Out
In a blog in early January, I wrote about how my legs were really bugging me on the flight back from Houston on race day. Well, one thing led to another and Zensah sent me a pair of compression pants to help, and they’re definitely one of my new best friends.

I wear them after marathons regardless of whether or not I’m flying and I really love them. The compression almost works like a massage and I haven’t cramped at all since I started wearing them. A triathlete friend of mine told me they help prevent blood clots from forming when I wear them after marathons. I failed seven science classes in high school, so I’ll have to take her at her word, but it sounds good to me.

Whatever the case, I love them and I definitely recommend them.

Good Luck/Bad Luck Flying, Pt. 2
On the way back, they asked me to try to squeeze my carry-on bag in the metal cage to see if it would fit in the overhead compartment. I’ve only flown with it on 18 flights this year (before Sunday). I’m pretty sure it fits and if it doesn’t, it’s the cage that’s the problem, but whatever. I understand. Sure enough, it fit. Take that, mean Frontier lady.

Of course, on my second flight, they ran out of space in the overhead compartments right as I was getting on the plane and they had to check it. I was the first person out of luck. Lucky me. But on the bright side, they had DirecTV with NBC on the flight, so I got to watch the hockey game! Oh wait, out of all the channels on the TV, NBC was the only one that wasn’t coming in. So we watched the ticker on ESPNEWS. And apparently, the Canadians won in overtime. I saw the score switch to 3-2 while I was writing this blog. Thrilling.

On that five-hour flight, I had a kid sitting directly me who wouldn’t stop kicking the seat. Yay me.

OK, That’s Way Too Much From This Weekend
If you got all the way to the bottom of this, you’d better get back to work before you get in trouble with your boss. Have a great Monday!