UMM..YOU CUT YOURSELF HOW?????

What up blog peeps?  So in my half-ass attempt to get in some kind of worthwhile training for my marathon in 13 freakin days I have been running 4 days a week.  This is unusual for me as I have been a 3 day a week runner for years now.  I am trying to get that 4th run in during the early am hours because honestly work sucks the life right out of me and I have issues with getting out there to run after work.  So instead of putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it I prefer to run at o dark thirty.  I headed out Thurs and was having a great run in the wonderful 45 degree dry air until mile 4.5 when I tripped over ......well who the hell knows what I tripped over...my feet, a rock, the sidewalk, a piece of dust , air...whatever.  I executed a stunning slide and once again managed to scrape up my knees.  My hands were ok since I had gloves on.  So for the umteenth time I finished out a run (2.5 miles) with blood running down some extremity.  The only redemming part about this wipeout was that since it was dark and 5:15 AM no one saw me do it!!!  That however was NOT the most amazing blood-letting incident of my week.  That came yesterday morning at Mile 11.75 of a 12 mile run as I arrived at a blind corner of a driveway at the same time a guy WALKING a bike with a 10 foot rusty pole balanced on it was exiting said driveway.  He had no idea I was coming and I had no idea he was coming until this very large pole all of the sudden appeared in front of me.  I had all of 1 sec to reach my hands up to prevent me from decapitating myself on the damn thing.  By doing that I managed to slice open my hand on the rusty pole.  After a series of OMG's and sorry's I reassured the guy I would be ok and I finished yet another run with blood dripping down an extremity. 

If this guy had a metal pole and was walking the bike it would be my guy!!!!

Seriously peeps.....who the hell gets sliced open buy a killer rusty pole???!!!!!WTF.  Quinn just shook her head when I told her what happened and pointed to the hutch which houses the first aid bag of wound care products, gauze, bandages, tape, etc.  Man that thing gets a lot of use. Today I ran a 9.3 mile race in the woods and on some very technical trails and did not wipeout at all.  Kerry and I did get lost and added a little under a half mile to our race.  Cindy and Deb ran..they got lost.  Steve ran..he got lost.  All at different places though.  Go figure.

On a non-running note.  Tray and Ariel came over after Ariel's guitar lesson yesterday so we could walk downtown get some lunch and freak watch.  It probably would have been easier to order a pizza and sit on my couch and watch those two instead.  After a dreary, rainy, foggy, cloudy morning it turned into a beautiful 70 degree day.  Well...unless you are a member of the Dudevoir mushroom family.  They frown upon bright sunshine.  If you go to their house on a bright summer day every window, door and blind will be closed and every air conditioner and fan in the house will be on.  You will need a headlamp to find your way around the house in the dark. FREAKS!!!!!! We walked into town to a chorus of "I'm hot, why did the sun have to come out, omg I am sweating".  Most people would consider yesterday beautiful but those Dudevoir's suffer from combustitis...the fear of spontaneously combusting when exposed to sunlight.

Now THAT will leave a mark

Despite the pissing, moaning, whining, complaining and worrying about melting we had a nice lunch and saw some typical Halloween in Salem freaks.  16 days till the BAHAMAS!!!

7 MONTHS IN 6 MINUTES

After the Ironman I spent umpteen hours putting together a slide show that summed up the experience.  It was a colassal pain in the ass to do but it came out great and I burned it onto a few DVD's to send to the family.  Unfortunately for whatever reason the DVD does not play in anyone's DVD player but it does play on the computer if you have a DVD player installed.  What freakin ever.  That crap is way outside of my realm of know how so I decided to upload it here for your viewing pleasure.  Hope you like it. The quality of the pictures isn't anywhere near as good as the real thing but until I get home to PA in December it is the best youns will get!!!  I take that back.  I tested the link and when it comes up there is a little thing that looks like a gear with a HD next to it.  Click on that and make sure it is on 1080.  That will make the video crystal clear.  Love you all.  For my not so computer saavy peeps the video has music and you can view it full screen.  That button looks like a picture frame doo hickey thingamabob.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4_Tjmj2f1Y&feature=youtu.be

A NEW TRADITION

After many many years of being parade watchers it has become apparent that Ariel and I will now become permanent parade crashers.  We had an absolute blast Thursday night and all of you blog peeps will be happy to know that we did not throw one piece of candy towards anyone's head.  In fact...brace yourself....we had so much fun no one even got on our nerves.  UMM WHAT???!!!!  Yep it's true.  First off let's talk about the costumes.  Once again Quinn outdid herself and with $20 of material and 45 minutes made us look like this.


I like your taste in clothing!!!!

Pretty cool huh?!  I would expect nothing less from someone who looks like this

Clearly she looks brilliant

Thankfully the rain ended around 5 Thursday and we headed downtown for dinner.  After eating my weight in chips, salsa and a burrito we went back to the car and Quinn dressed us.  We weren't 200 feet from the car when a young college kid and his girlfriend stopped and asked to take a picture with us.  Since we looked like penguins we decided we should walk like them

We stopped at our usual parade viewing spot and waited for Kerry and the penguins from the Carlton School to come by.  They were towards the beginning of the parade so we were in the parade in no time.  We marched along handing out candy and waving to the crowds.  We marched the whole way to the end at the Salem Common and got kudos from the assistant principal and a kindergarden teacher at the school.  Nothing liked getting thanked for crashing a parade.  A women at the Common asked to video us and a guy from England asked to take our picture to show to his "mates" back home.  As usual Ariel and I spent the whole night cracking each other up with our warped sense of humor.  As the bagpipers went by I declared "I love men in skirts".  When the cop on the segway went by she looked at me and said "Paul Blart..mall cop".  Some other random things we said or were said to us in my favorite run-on sentence style of writing are ...Hoooooooo. He is totally rocking that dress. Attention attention we have two penguins busting a move at the common. Don't worry I just removed a layer of skin. Are you two related?.  What a fun night so looks like it is a go from now on.  More candy next year and new costumes.  Not going to commit to not pelting someone with candy though.  It is bound to happen eventually.  For me Thursday was simply awesome.  After work I talked to my nephew Josh for 25 minutes on the phone and then spent the next few hours with Ariel.  Those two mean the world to me.
I am by the way still working out despite not blogging about it much.  I am sort of kind of training for my marathon in November.  I am running 4 days a week and over 30 miles a week but don't really have the long runs in that I should.  Oh well.  On Saturday Kerry, Patty, Cindy, Bonnie, Steve and I did a run on the marathon course.  It is a 12.5 mile loop and I did 4 miles before.  Overall I felt ok and managed to not face plant.  There were two parts of the course that had puddles you simply had to run through.  Nothing like submerging your feet in ankle deep water 4 miles into a run.  That is the fun of trail running though and it didn't bother me one bit.  The race is all about fun so I am not getting worked up about it.  I miss my bike believe it or not.  The weekend weather hasn't really been cooperating so my biking outside has been minimal.  As far as swimming goes.......still hate it and it is even harder now to go because I don't really have to.  Who cares.  I still manage to get there twice a week..usually. BTW only 30 days till vacation.  BAHAMAS baby!!!  That is how you recover from a marathon.  Sun, sand and frozen beverages.