Gratitude Attitude

Thanksgiving weekend was a great escape from the daily grind and 10 hour work days. I enjoyed two 5 mile runs between Friday and Sunday separated by a day of rigorous cross training on the Arc Trainer, Spin Bike, and even a little bit of rowing on the Concept 2 trainer. I even had time to take some positive nutritional action to supplement my training by making a turkey vegetable soup with the Thanksgiving leftovers. I'm not normally an adventurous eater but I went a little crazy in the dried bean aisle of the supermarket and added some black beans, kidney beans and peas to the soup to go along with the potatoes and corn that I had at home. The net result was more ingredients than broth but good carbohydrate, and protien fuel for the muscles! Side note to those of you who are novice cooks like me . . . apparently you have to soak dried beans before you cook them, or you can like I did start cooking in the crock pot, see the funny wrinkled beans and then google soup recipies to see where you went a rye. . . luckily putting the crock pot in the fridge overnight and resuming cooking the next evening saved the day. The crock pot is a magical invention!

I was nervous about how I'd fare over the holiday weekend as this is the first holiday season since my younger brother passed. My fear of impending melancholy was also in part to losing a family friend earlier in the week. My Aunt Kathy's brother Jim Bell, succumbed to pancreatic cancer earlier in the week. Attending the wake was difficult as it was my first since my brother's. It was heartbreaking to see the ravage that cancer had done to Jim's body in his final months. Yet despite Jim's loss his family members in the weeks leading up to his passing and following adopted a gratitude attitude in which they daily remarked on what they were thankful for on facebook, or other means. Their resolve to honor Jim in this way was very inspiring to me in the wake of my own recent personal loss. So embracing their perspective, I was reflective during the weekend and appreciative of the opportunity to spend time breaking bread with my future in-laws family. At one point I actually had a quiet moment of reflection sitting at the table where I was able to observe the hustle and bustle of dessert serving, dinner guests pitching in with the dinner clean-up and enjoying good conversation. It's quite refreshing to actively appreciate the seemingly mundane from time to time.

My reflective optimistic outlook was bolstered again last night at the second DFMC runner's meeting. The monthly meetings are great motivation to keep up the hard work on the training and fundraising fronts. Following the meeting many team members gathered at the Boston Beer Works and I met some great team members that I look forward to running with at weekly runs at Crossroads and Group runs on the weekends over the coming weeks and months.