CrossRoads Blog

Tradition is by definition something that is ongoing - you have done it before and expect to again. There are many great family traditions surrounding the holidays. One for me growing up was we always went to my Grandfather’s lake house on Christmas Eve with all my Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. We would all exchange gifts, eat a ton of food and cookies and listen to my Uncle Keith make cracks about the $10 he got from ‘Howard’ (my grandpa), score a Central Michigan shirt from my Aunt Lisa, take goofy pictures and laugh. I loved that tradition. Can’t tell you how much I missed it the first year I was away some 30 or so years ago - and even today think about those nights every Christmas.

The immediate family always tried to keep that Christmas Eve thing going on and about 12 years ago our house became the gathering place for all of us to get together and share a great night of family, food, gifts and laughter. We would always do Kimberly and Kerry’s birthday presents first and then it was Christmas time. But sadly, like going to my Grandpa and Grandma’s the tradition of having everyone over to our place has kind of faded some in the last few years too. With my folks and now the boys both being in Oklahoma, we are now down to just Mom and Dad Lohstroh, Mike, Kerry, Josh, Heather, and us. So while we still get together, we still do the birthday thing, and Kimberly and I still try to do a special ‘ethnic theme meal’, it’s just not quite the same old full crazy house with everyone here.

But as some traditions die, others are born. And one of the new ‘traditions’ (seeing it has been two years now and will hopefully go on forever) is ‘crazy gift gaming’ (for lack of better term so far). Essentially everyone buys a ton of odd - weird - funny - nice - practical - impractical, (basically you name it) little gifts. The only criteria is that it cannot be over $10. So after dinner we all sit around and play some game - whatever is short, (it was Five Card Stud Poker this year), and the winner gets to pick a new gift or steal one that someone else has already gotten. Last year being the first year we had a riot. This year with everyone knowing all year it was coming, turned out to be even more fun. I think we were not the only ones who kept an eye out all year long for ‘the perfect items’.

The net was it was a great time, and a great ending to a very nice Kimberly & Kerry Birthday slash Christmas Eve get together with family. I may have missed out this time on the Monkey Butt Powder and the Redneck Telescoping Fork but I did score the musical Elvis singing Blue Christmas Ornament which went right on the tree and 10 rolls of toilet paper (don’t ask)! Let the search for 2010 gifts begin… Oh yeah, and the Tenderloin Filet’s on the grill and Au Gratin Potatoes made for a great meal (of course the 5 bottles of wine may have helped the palette) and Kimberly loved the Kindle I got for her Birthday.

The thing Kimberly and I both recalled about last year’s Frosty’s Run is that it ‘earned’ it’s name. It was cold! I remember being very happy when we got to start running and warm the body. The other thing was how much we enjoyed the race. So there we were again, trying to get an early sleep Saturday and getting our not-so-young selves up at 4:50 AM Sunday morning to do a race. The difference being, this time even though the temperature was suppose to be better, we were far better prepared. For me that means double gloves, for Kimberly that means long pants and the little earband thinggie’ she has.

We got to the race in time to mingle a little and say hello to some of the familiar faces. Funny how many of the same cast of characters end up doing many of the local races. On the positive side it was also much warmer than last year, but that said, it is still cold as heck in the desert before the sun comes up. The race supports the local Hospice community and is held at Reach 11 Park just South of the 101 and Tatum. It is 10 Miles and ran entirely on the dirt trails in an area called Horse Lovers Park. Kind of odd in that the race is all on dirt trail (nice on the knees) and seems like it is in the middle of nowhere running the whole 10 miles, yet you are less than a mile from Desert Ridge and a couple from the busy Scottsdale/101 area.

Kimberly and I had good runs and in fact both ended up getting a medal for our age groups. This was kind of surprising in that last year we remember that Frosty’s had some really fast folks that ran it. Kimberly knocked a ton of time of her last year result and finished just over an hour and a half at 1:30:14 good for 57th overall and 3rd in her age group. Funny thing was, had the race been just 4 days later (after her birthday Dec 24th) she would have won her age group. Yet another good news - bad news thing about getting older . I crossed at 1:13:51 which was 2nd in my age group and 7th place overall.

The downside of our medal success was that we had to hang out to receive them. Which meant waiting until everyone is done with the race, they have gotten organized etc. Normally not a big deal at all, and happy to do it. This time however it proved an issue… We are in the midst of training for the P. F. Chang Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in 4 weeks. Because of this our schedules called for about 20 miles or running this day. Now most people just skip the races and do the 20 run like they wisely should - but we like to race to much. Other people who maybe do like us and do the race, just say the 10 miles is enough seeing it was a race and call it a day. Well…. not us stubborn types. We are suppose to do 20, then we need to do the race, then just go out and do the same 10 mile track and we will have our 20 in. Net result of this stubbornness and having to wait 1 1/2 hours in between the two 10 mile runs - PAIN. And I do mean PAIN in all capitals. There seems to be a window of time were you can run a race, hang out and then run again. I am not sure what it is, but I know what it is not. After about 8 miles into run two (and BTW the temps were now up 25 degrees), I turned and looked at Kimberly and said “I have had enough, how about you?”. Let’s say there was not an pause before her answer. Sadly it was still 2 miles back to the car, though it did allow us plenty of time to come up with justification on calling it a wrap 2 miles early.

We will be back next year hoping for warm weather and NOT planning to run after….

Sometimes Kimberly and I are running around and next thing you know the whole day is gone, or the weekend for that matter, and we go “man what happened, were did all the time go”. It’s like time really does just fly by. Neither of a has a job that is outside of the house, we have no traffic time, no kids piano or Tae Kwon Do lessons to go to, no PTA, no etc. - but yet it seems like we don’t ever have a spare minute one. Yesterday, I think this was the epitome of ‘no rest for the wicked’ as we were running (ummm.. no pun intended) right from the get-go!

Our morning started with a 4:00 A.M. rise. We quickly did the breakfast thing, and got ready for the Saturday long run with the West Valley Runners. Seeing we were starting the run at 5:30 so that we would be finished by 8:00 ish, this meant cold weather gear, gloves, packing the GU shots, music charged, headlamps on, watch, recovery bars, spi-belt, etc. We wanted to still make sure we had at least a little time after the run to go over to Starbucks and hang with the guys before we had to scoot quickly home and get things going for the next part of the morning. So Kimberly knocked out the 18 miles she needed and I got in my 21.5 and we went over and said hello for a bit with the gang for coffee.

We couldn’t stay long, because we had to run home and get ready for the Annual Tae Kwon Do Party in the park by 10:00. Seeing we had committed to bringing the breakfast Burritos that meant a ton of veggie chopping and cooking still to be done (to say nothing of cracking and separating 5 dozen eggs as we only wanted the whites). So we were flying with showers going, four burners cooking, the electric skillet rockin’, knives, chopping boards everywhere, wraps, aluminum foil, it was nuts. But we did manage to load the food (about 30 plus Burritos), grab some chairs, throw them in the truck and make it over to the park only 30 minutes late or so.

The get together was good fun as always. Way more food options than we all need. I scored some home processed sausage and even ate a doughnut (I ran 21 miles that am so I figured it’s all good). We spent some time shooting the breeze with the whole gang - the folks and the families of our Dojang are all great people. After stuffing ourselves it was time for the annual soccer game. I had a riot, even though I had to play much more in control than last year seeing the hamstring is still very tender. Kimberly wisely watched from the cheering section. I think we played for at least an hour and half before the crowd started breaking up and we all called it a wrap.

It was now time for a late lunch and little store running we had to do. We got the shopping done as fast as we could, came home, ate, hit the shower again (funky from the Soccer and being out in the cold), and got ready for the night. Kimberly’s fellow Belly Dance troupe friend Laura was having a birthday get together. The cool part was that it was going to be the Coyotes Hockey game playing the Sharks. So I was down with that for sure. Only thing was, the gang was all getting together before the game over at Westgate for dinner and drinks meaning we had to be there by like 5:00. Seeing by the time the late lunch and showers were done it was now 3:30, there would be no hoped for nap.

We had a good time at the restaurant and game, it was nice to catch up with everyone. Seems like it has been forever since we have had a night out with some of the Belly Dance gang. It was also nice to see the Coyotes playing some good hockey (it’s been awhile), but sadly we had to book it after the second period so we could rush home and get ready for the Annual Boat/Xmas Party at the Courpe’s. Good news is we are only about 15 minutes from the stadium, I think it took more time to walk to the Truck than it took to get home once out of the parking lot. So within one hour of leaving the game we were in the Christmas(ie) duds with Kimberly’s homemade cookies and a bottle of Vino in our hands walking into the Party.

Alan and Ene always put on a great holiday party, and this year was no exception. Seeing there was no Boat Parade that meant no kiddo’s. No kiddo’s I am sure meant a much more ‘adult’ vibe to the later hours of the party - which sadly we did not get to see. We said hello everybody, had a few cocktails, some vino, hung as best we could, but by about 11:00 we had to fess up and admit we were getting too old to party into the wee hours. Still by the time we hit the sheets it was a 20 plus hour non-stop day. I still wonder where the heck the time goes and how we used to do it back in the day with kids around….

This will be one of the trips that I as time passes I will look back be able to focus more on what was great about the trip versus what was not. In that vein, I will start out with the ‘not’ so I can get to all the fun and good times.

I woke up the day after getting back from McAlester a little sore. Not too unexpected seeing we just had a 16 hour drive the day before, but Kimberly said she felt fine. I didn’t think anything of it until I went out for my run a couple hours later. Originally we had the planned on doing the Half Marathon at the coming weekend’s Las Vegas Rock & Roll Marathon. Only seeing I have been pretty much doing Marathon quantity training miles per week (and I needed 20 miles that day not 13) I was fairly sure I would switch over the do the full and just treat it as a training run for the upcoming Chang’s Full in January. Which meant my plan for that Monday was 12 miles or so. Only as soon as I started to run I felt my right hamstring was sore. Hey, we are used to soreness in certain areas, so I just decided to keep running and it would go away. Problem was as soon as I picked up the pace after my warm-up - OUCH, it felt like I ripped the whole thing from the back of my knee. I hobbled home as the realization that I was likely at least fairly injured started to sit it. I won’t bore you with lot’s more, but the story ends with I was still jacked 6 days later when it was time to run in Vegas. The good news was that as long as I didn’t push the speed too much I could run - so I was able to run. The great news was that while a little painful to go at her pace, I was able to run with Kimberly and we crossed the finish line together (a great photo opportunity)!

Now the rest of the great parts of the trip… It was Vegas remember, so you know there was fun to be had. The first night in town we checked out the new City Center area, or at least the parts that were open. This place is going to be amazing if it ever gets to what it was to be. Makes me wonder though with all the economy issues if this will be one huge casualty. In the meantime, it truly is a ‘City in a City’ (and to think we used to say that about some individual hotels. A cool aside, I think they named one of the Hotels in City center after the Granddaughter (Aria). Of course we did a whole lot of walking around; the Venetian Shoppes, Caesars’ Forum, The Fashion Show, etc. Got some incredible shopping deals because of all the options and the economy. Kimberly had her first Wolfgang Puck Pizza, we had a nice meal at ‘The Company Store’, and of course one night did the carbo load at the Paris Buffet.

But this trip was all about the race and hanging with our runner friends. One really cool aspect was that even though it was not a ‘local’ race, we still got to hang with a bunch of running friends. Quite a few of the West Valley Runners (a local run club we run with) were in town to run the Half and the Full. They are a bunch of great folks and we didn’t get to hang with them as much as we would have liked, but we did catch up a couple of times. Sunday night we missed them sounds perhaps like it could have been a fun one. We heard something about Coyote Ugly, crazy drinking, belts, welts, etc (we will keep quiet on the rest :-). We were also able to connect up with some runner friends we have come to know from Twitter (Kimberly’s friends really). It was nice, we hung a little at the expo, and had a drink with them at Mandalay one day. I’m sure it will not be the last time we hang with that crowd…

All in all, like I said a great long weekend in Vegas. I might be bummed about the hamstring, but I got to run down the Las Vegas Strip with my wonderful wife, see a bunch of friends, eat at some great Vegas places, and just hang in town we love. Heck if I would have stayed home it would have been to clean the pool and do yard work - I’ll take the jacked hamstring please…

Some PICS HERE