pre-feast, pre-race thoughts

Tomorrow the Thanksgiving festivities begin. We're flying to L.A. to spend a few days with my family. Apparently, Todd is going to provide the entertainment: My dad has gathered the most adventurous (a.k.a. scariest) Filipino foods possible (think "Fear Factor" here -- we're talking duck eggs with embryonic duckling intact) to see just where Todd will draw the line. I'm a little afraid.

Luckily, though, our whole trip won't be all about greasy fried pork skins and blood stew. We're also planning to hit up Tom Colicchio's craft -- can't wait. And you know me -- if we can squeeze in a stop for a Del Classic Chicken Burrito, I will be in heaven. I swear, I wouldn't have survived college without Del Taco. Dear Del Taco executive people: My heart breaks daily because you do not have a Petaluma location.

But before the mass consumption of food begins, I've been trying to get a few quality runs in. And nail down the raceday logistics. Lately, I've found myself lying in bed, half-awake, thinking: Will my shorts have enough pockets? How am I going to carry my pretzels, Shot Bloks and jelly beans?

I've been testing out all kinds of waist pack-type gadgets. First there was the hydration belt from Ultimate Direction. It bounced like crazy, rode up all the time and made my stomach look pouchy. I was basically driven insane every time I tried to run with it and often fantasized about dumping it on the side of the road or hanging it in a tree somewhere.

So I switched to running with a hand held water bottle (which I still don't really love and don't plan to race with -- but it's a must for training, even though I think it makes my whole right side stiff and changes the way I run -- funny how a water bottle can do that) and got this fanny pack-ish thing from Nathan for gels, nutrition, etc. Once again, it bounced. And the straps were so long and kept coming undone. I had to keep adjusting them, and that was obnoxious.

My last resort: The SPI Belt. Dear god, I wish I had bought this to begin with -- I would've saved so much money! I took it for a test run today (4-mile tempo run with hills) -- crammed it full of gels, as well as my phone, keys and Chapstick, just to see what would happen. There was no bouncing and no stomach-pouch-inducing-riding-up, but the belt did start to rotate around my waist, which was kind of annoying. Still, this is better than anything else I've tried, and I'm pretty impressed by how such seemingly teeny-tiny pockets (see my photo) expand to hold so much crap.

CIM countdown: One week, three days.