Post Thanksgiving -- Some Scenes From My Non-Run Holiday

Hello there, folks.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. Ours was great.  We stayed in Manhattan and watched the parade, and then took in the Radio City Christmas Show.

Here's me, pretending that I'm a Manhattanite living amid all the hub-bub

During last year's Thanksgiving-in-the-City trip -- 2009 --  I was still clinging to the measly little hope that my plantar fasciitis was not going to prevent me from running in the Disney half marathon I had been training for since the preceding spring.  I had made many compromises with the plantar fasciitis.  I had run slower.  I had not run on hills.  I had tried to alter my gait to a healthier mid-foot strike using principles from Chi Running.  I had cut back on my long run miles.  I had done so many things to try to coax my poor foot into healing while I was still training. Pretty please, foot?  Will this be enough to persuade you to keep running so I don't have to discontinue training?

But it was the day after Thanksgiving 2009 when I went for a  run in Central Park that I knew the gig was over.  I admitted defeat by the ugly plantar fasciitis monster.  That run in Central Park, day-after-T-Giving 2009, was my last run before I had to take six months off to recover from the foot.  At that point I did not have a crystal ball to look into to tell me all about how I would very soon try barefoot running.  I didn't have a vision of the future to predict that I would start a barefoot blog and give myself a barefoot name.  I only felt horrible that I had to relinquish the goal I had set for myself.

I think I threw a little temper tantrum about it.  I decided to give up on watching what I ate, and while I was healing from the plantar fasciitis.  "What's the use?" was my attitude as I dug into the Christmas cookies and pies.

However, that was really dumb and immature.  Because running injuries heal.  One does get back to running, and once the time is past, the period of time resting seems like nothing at all.  The mistake of not seeing the larger picture, in my case, caused me to make things a bit more difficult for myself when I started back up again. Twenty-five extra pounds more difficult, as a matter of fact.


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Well, enough looking back and having regrets.  In fact, there is not even a moment to spare in that kind of activity -- thinking about regrets.  It will only weigh a person down as one moves towards future adventures.  And this year I have really strong great feet to proceed with.

This year as we spent our time in the City, I had planned to run in Central Park again, as I had the year before because I remembered how cool it felt to just wake up and go out there and pretend that I lived in Manhattan and that Central Park was my backyard.

But it was raining.  So I did not go.

So, instead of the great report of a barefoot run in Central Park I had planned to share with all of you, I'll just share a couple of pictures from the holiday.

Oh --- uggh ---- I didn't take pictures of the parade this year because I have so many from other years that I thought I had enough finally.  So, that meant, in order to complete this blog post, I had to go dig through my photo files and find pictures taken in 2009 and 2008.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

It always starts out looking much more like Thanksgiving.

Then there's all that in-between stuff:

and then we have to remember that we're in New York City, specifically

until finally it evolves into Christmas -- which is on the way:

Whew!  I was going to share the rest of the weekend, including the Radio City Christmas Show, but I think that's enough for one blog post.  I'll save the other stuff for the next post.

I still have to write about running with freezing numb feet when I got home from the city.  You'll have to stay tuned.