This past weekend was one of those weekends that feels really long and really short at the same time. It started off with the inaugural Frosty 5K at Bisset Park in Radford. Barry and I both ran the race, and it was the first time I’ve gotten him to do a holiday-themed race with me. I usually do the Jingle Bell 5K in Roanoke, which is about an hour away, but I was happy to find a race in Radford this year, which is only about 25 minutes away.
It was a chilly, rainy day, but I liked the race course. Bisset Park is where I did all of my interval workouts during marathon training this year. My only goal was to run sub-30, since I spent all of fall focusing on endurance and not speed, and I was happy to finish in 28:50. Barry pulled off a first place in his age group (and the groups were in 10 year increments) despite being about a minute away from the start line when the race started!
That is possibly the crappiest picture my camera has ever taken, but it’s all I’ve got. After the race I had to rush home and get on the road to make the 4.5 hour drive to my dad’s house. His birthday was on Saturday and my little sister put together a surprise birthday party for him. She did a fabulous job, and he was really surprised! We had a whole bunch of family and his friends over for the party.
We also celebrated my dad’s sister’s birthday, which is on the same day as his (although they’re not twins, they’re a few years apart).
I spent the night at my dad’s house and then hung out for a bit on Sunday before heading back home. On the way home, I met Barry at the Inn at Virginia Tech to view the Fashions for Evergreens display.
Every year, they hold a Christmas tree competition and then display them all at the Inn. Then people can walk through, look at them all, and vote on their favorites. The winner gets a prize, but I don’t know what it is and the folks at the hotel didn’t know either. There were at least fourteen trees on display, and of course I loved the Virginia Tech one.
But my favorite tree was actually one done by the Radford Health & Rehab facility, which coincidentally was the organizer for the Frosty 5K on Saturday morning. So I guess we’ve come full circle. The reason it was my favorite was because they had little framed pictures all over the tree of a bunch of the residents and their families from when they were younger. The residents also cut up all of the oranges, grape fruit, and apple slices and dried them to put on the trees.
Overall it was a fun, but exhausting weekend. The only downer was waking up yesterday morning with a sore throat and chest cold thing going on. Hopefully it will clear up soon!
How was your weekend?
Who went racing this weekend?
Have you ever been to a Christmas tree competition display?
Turkey Runner 
You are lucky if that’s the worst picture your camera has ever taken.
Congrats to Barry for his win!
I’ve never been to a Christmas Tree decorating contest, but I’ve been to gingerbread house one. It’s always fun to judge for yourself 🙂 The Virginia Tech tree is surprisingly kind of pretty 🙂
A lot of them have been coming out kind of grainy/pixely lately. Not sure what the deal is. I bet it would smell SO good at a gingerbread house decorating contest!!
What a weekend it was, and yes I was surprised.
LUD.
Success! 🙂
Congrats on a great race. Tough to jump down to 5k when you have been doing endurance training so great job.
Nothing better than a well executed surprise party lol.
Thanks! It is a tough jump to make. My legs were like “wait, you want us to do what!?”
Wow-what a busy weekend you had! Did your dad know you were coming up or do you always have a place to stay at his house? Your dad seems cool, so I don’t think he’d care, but it would be funny to surprise him at the party and then tell him you were staying with him. My dad and aunt have the same birthday, too, but they are actually twins. That is too funny that they are not twins! My mom and her sister have birthdays a day a part and several years, too.
No, he didn’t know I was coming up. He still lives in the house I grew up in, and my little sister still lives there as well. So I do have a room there because it’s been mine since I was 3 🙂 It does function as a guest room for others, too, though.
Looks like a fun weekend! The race looks very festive & good job on the time! I’m glad you made it to your dad’s party. Somehow I did not realize he lived quite so far from you. I feel like he makes a lot of appearances here…I guess he does lots of traveling! 🙂 The trees are beautiful!
Virginia is a big state! It takes me 6 hours to drive from my house to the beach, about 4.5 hours to drive to the DC area, yet I can still drive another 3 hours southwest of where we live and still be in Virginia. Crazy. We both do lots of traveling up and down the interstate! 🙂
Aww I bet your dad loved the surprise party! It’s always a nice feeling when people want to throw you one! That’s so funny they have the same birthday but aren’t twins! My twin and I were born around 11PM and I always wish that we were born on different days but could still say we were twins haha.
He was very surprised, and I think he had a really good time. My little sister did a great job rounding up his friends from both high school and college. It would have been so cool if you and your brother had ended up with different birth dates! How crazy would that be.
Happy belated birthday to Roger, and congrats to Barry on his age group win! It sounds like you had a very fun weekend!
It was a busy one for sure!