Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope some of you were able to get out and get moving before stuffing your faces 🙂  This whole idea of running a half-marathon on Thanksgiving morning is relatively new to me, but I don’t see myself doing it any differently in the years to come.  It just takes a few hours of my time and my husband and I still manage to get a delicious dinner on the table.  I definitely like the idea of being able to eat what I want with little worry.

As I reflect back on my childhood holidays, I have difficulty remembering my mother ever cooking a turkey.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she never took on the challenge.  She was far from domestic.  I know that she would rather have been running than cooking.  As I find myself in the kitchen, I realize that I am really not that great at whipping up these holiday feasts.  My mother did not teach me how to bake an apple pie.  I learned that when I lived for 4 months in the Bahamas while studying sharks (sounds silly, I know).  If it weren’t for my step-mother, my poor husband would be forced to eat frozen dinners and take on a majority of the housework.  My step-mother is the queen of domestic.  She actually thrives on cooking and cleaning.  She can’t go a day without grabbing the bottle of bleach.  So, I guess I managed to get the best of both worlds.

Therefore, when it comes to family traditions, nothing really stands out pre-step-mother era.  I am not one of those daughters who whips out the recipe passed down to her from her mother who acquired it from her mother.  I don’t have those memories of smelling my mother’s apple pie as it bakes in the oven or helping her frost the cookies.  Yeah, sometimes I get a tad jealous when I hear of my friends talking about their mothers in this way.  I hope they are thankful that they still get to spend holidays with their mothers.

Yet, what I do have that most don’t, is the passion to run.  That is what my mother passed on to me.  It makes these Thanksgiving 1/2 marathons all the more special… similar to the feeling of nostalgia you get when baking that apple pie from your mother’s recipe.   Not only that, but I have my own daughters now and I can pass along the family traditions that I think are worthy.  Just yesterday, my oldest helped me make a pumpkin pie.  Next year I will show her how to make “my” awesome apple pie.  And why not get in a good turkey trot?