Give Thanks and Lace Up!

Although it almost caught me unaware this year, Thanksgiving arrives this week, so let’s give some thanks for our many blessings. While I’m sure that each of you can easily identify a number of important things for which you’re thankful this year: family and friends, good health (you are training, right?), your retirement account--oops, better skip that last one--but let me add a couple of possibilities you might have overlooked.

First, you probably have the day off of work on Thanksgiving, which is another thing to give thanks for. A day off means that you can sleep in a bit later and still go out for a nice run in the morning before the big Thanksgiving dinner! In fact, many runners take the opportunity to tack two or three extra miles onto their normal weekday run. And, since running burns 100 or so calories per mile, the extra mileage allows you to indulge in that “extra helping” of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, or pumpkin pie. Then you can kick back in the recliner and watch some football without feeling too guilty! Such a deal, eh?

Second, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll be among those who will be going “over the river and through the woods” to spend the day with Grandma (as the media endlessly reminds us, more people travel at Thanksgiving than at any other time). Aside from visiting with loved ones, you might ask, “Why is this a blessing?”

Well, unless Grandma lives in Manhattan, Los Angeles, or some similar overly urbanized place, you’ll have the opportunity to do a couple of training runs somewhere other than your usual running routes. While many, if not most, new runners, may be reluctant to go out running in unfamiliar places, it’s actually an opportunity to add a bit of freshness to your training! I’ve always found that exploring a new area on foot is a bit of an adventure. It’s almost always the case that I can find parks, pleasant neighborhoods, trails or country roads that offer a good, safe place to run. Of course, you do need to pay attention to directions and street names while running or you may not find your way back to that family dinner where the extra helpings await!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

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