Monday, November 19, 2012

Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving, and my first Turkey Trot

Greetings from Pittsburgh!


I've mentioned before that Adam grew up in Pittsburgh, so the usual tradition is to spend Thanksgiving with Adam's family here.  I've visited Pittsburgh many times, yet everytime I do I'm still stunned by the city's surprising beauty and diversity.  When entering the city, the view you get while emerging from the Fort Pitt tunnel is unlike any I've ever seen.

Backing up a bit.  This past weekend, Adam and I made the 8-hour drive from Chicago to Pittsburgh with an overnight stop in Cleveland enroute.  For all you Food Network fans, we had dinner at Iron Chef Michael Symon's restaurant, Lolita, on Saturday night.  I am by no means a foodie, but Lolita was very enjoyable.

Iron Chef Michael Symon
(In case you were wondering, he did NOT greet us at the front door in this pose.)

After arriving in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon, we had tickets to the Steelers-Ravens game at Heinz Field last night.  The game is worthy of a whole post by itself, which is off-topic for me here (I'll leave that to Adam to cover in detail).  However, in short it was a great game against a bitter rival.  And after screaming my innerds out for most of the night, I am paying for it today with a voice so hoarse that I could put Louis Armstrong to shame.




(Maybe the reason Louis's voice sounds so distinctive is because he's also a big sportsfan and has also gone overboard with vocalizing his sportsfan enthusiasm?)

Here are some pictures from the game last night:

Festiveness in front of Heinz Field

Fans waiting to go through the security lines

The view from our original seats

Fans in action, waving their Terrible Towels. 
It was an absolutely incredible sight to see 63,000+ fans doing this in unison.
This picture so does NOT do it justice.

We got asked to trade seats from Section 519 to Section 219 by a woman who wanted to sit with some of her friends.  Who were we to argue?
This was the view from our new seats.

Beyond celebrating Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh, I'll also be running my first-ever Turkey Trot here - the PNC YMCA Turkey Trot 5-miler on Thanksgiving Day.


I am excited to run my first race outside of Illinois.  Come to think of it, I've actually never even run a race outside of Chicago city limits.  So as much as I love the Chicago lakefront and neighborhoods, I am looking forward to some new scenery.

Unfortunately I am NOWHERE near peak condition for this race.  I haven't even logged 25 miles TOTAL since running the Chicago Marathon on October 7.  I don't even want to think about how much my endurance and fitness levels have probably plummeted in these last few weeks.  When I do run, I am still battling groin pain, hip flexor tightness, and knee discomfort.  I'm even starting to experience some wonkiness in my left foot.  Then, to add even more insult to injury (both literally and figuratively), I've put on a couple of pounds, too.  Not a great feeling going into the holiday season, that's for sure.  (I'll probably be one of those folks who causes irritation to all regular-gym-goers by taking up all kinds of workout space starting on January 1.)


I would love to put forth aggressive goals for myself going into this race, but now is really not the time for me to be trying to set a PR.  So as hard as it will be mentally, I'm going to try not to focus on goals and just have a good time.  Several of Adam's lifelong friends (Hi, Molly, Julie, and Shawn!) are also running the Turkey Trot, so it'll be fun to enjoy the festivities with them.  Heck, this might even be the first-ever race where I try to take action pictures from inside the race course.  (Yes, me taking MORE pictures.  Hard to believe, I know!)

Happy Thanksgiving week to all!  And happy racing to all that are doing Turkey Trots or other races this week!

14 comments:

  1. Nice seeing you and Adam Emily. Enjoy the rest of your stay in da "Burgh"! -Mike

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    1. Mike, thank you, and it was great to see you, too! I hope that there will be hockey VERY soon so we can all get together for a Pens game in the very near future, as well!!!!!

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  2. Cannot WAIT to see you at the Turkey Trot!! Woot woot!

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    1. Molly - I can't wait to see you at the Turkey Trot, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See you SOON!!!!!

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  3. It was cool that you were at the Steelers game yesterday. I watched part of it last night and noticed they were wearing those really retro uniforms. Very cool. Good luck on your Turkey Trot. You may be surprised at how much post-marathon fitness you still have left!

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    1. "Really retro uniforms" is a nice way to describe those uniforms. =D Thank you for the well wishes during the Turkey Trot, I hope you are right regarding how much post-marathon fitness I still have left! And HUGE congratulations to you on your sub-40 10K at the Lincolnwood Turkey Trot!!!!!

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  4. Sorry about te steelers ugly loss... But it looked like a great time! I'm now wanting to search stub hub for a bears game. Oh noo!

    Have fun at your turkey trot this weekend. I'll 2nd the comment Above and say you probably still have quite a bit of fitness from the marathon. Either way, take care and enjoy Pittsburgh!

    GOBBLE

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    1. These NFL games are really something else. There are some really hard-core fans out there!!! I really want to go to a Bears game now, too, to see what the atmosphere is like in comparison. Maybe next year we can try to find an early-season (so we don't have to worry about the cold weather) Bears game to go to together?!?

      Happy Turkey Trotting to you, too! I can't wait to hear how yours goes as I know you are going to do AWESOME!!!

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  5. Have fun at your Turkey Trot!! Definitely take some pictures. That will keep you from going all out :-)

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    1. Thanks, Erin! Sounds like you have some experience with trying to restrain yourself from going all out, no? It's seriously harder for me to go easy in a race than it is to just let loose. Totally bizarre, I know!

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  6. How cool that you got to go to a professional football game!

    It sounds like you will have a fun Turkey Trot with friends there! Bummer that you are still having some pain. Is physical therapy not helping? :(

    Happy Thanksgiving!

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    1. Thanks, Kim, and Happy Thanksgiving to you, too! Physical therapy is helping, but admittedly it would probably help more if I was more diligent about doing all my PT exercises. I've been focusing more on cross-training and weight-training in the hopes that I could bypass some of the specific PT work (which has gotten so cumbersome). Unfortunately there's probably no substitute for the real thing. =(

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  7. Pittsburgh looks like a beautiful city!! It's definitely been on my must-visit places list for a long time, I need to make my way over there! I'm excited for you to run in a new place, it always makes things so much more interesting! Don't stress too much about it and just enjoy the scenery and the run itself (even if you have to walk). I'm sure you've still kept much of the fitness from your marathon training because it hasn't been that long after all!

    Happy Thanksgiving gorgeous!

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    1. Definitely go check out Pittsburgh whenever you can!!! It has a reputation from years ago as being a very blue-collar steel city, but it has evolved so much since then and it really has a ton to offer.

      Thank you for the well wishes during the race! I know you understand the feeling since you took some time off from running when you were traveling in Russia, etc. And you bounced back pretty much without missing a beat!!!

      I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving! And I absolutely loved your post on your Thanksgiving Day run!

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