To brine or not to brine...

I think I've decided to brine the Thanksgiving turkey this year...I've read and heard conflicting reviews of brined turkeys, but more seem to be positive than negative, so I'm going to try it. I've done at least one endurance grocery shop and am almost ready for Thanksgiving...the cook-a-thon will officially begin on Wednesday afternoon. We've located and test driven a really good cranberry martini recipe, so my goal is to have our guests somewhere between happily mellow and completely hammered by the time the turkey is done anyway, so it won't even matter whether it's good or not! Regardless, I'm looking forward to the holiday...and, of course, the half marathon calorie burn-off next Sunday.

Yesterday was my long run day and it was only 9 miles this week...went around Lake Union + Portage Bay with a little extra at the end. The weather was abnormally dry and really nice, so after my run, I biked out to Marymoor and met up with Seujan and Diana who had been biking already for a few hours. It was really fun to ride a comfortable pace on a completely flat route, with a tailwind at the end...didn't take my HR monitor or even a watch. As we got home, our friends Marci & Ann and their little one-year-old, Madison called and stopped by for a visit. After we sat around a while, I was starving, so we ordered pizza...fortuituously, one of our neighbors delivered a "welcome to the condo" chocolate cake (we've lived here since July, but her timing was excellent). So...a strong training day and week capped off with a nutritional bomb of 2 beers, 3 pieces of pizza, and chocolate cake. BOO-YEAH! Oh, well...moderation, right? I don't eat that crap every day...ok, the beer, but not the rest. Enough confessions.

The summary of yesterday's better behavior and the week's workouts below:
Long Run: 9.25 miles
Time: 1:27:00
Power surge up to 162 bpm from 46 - 51 min.
Power surge up to 166 bpm for one mile from 1:12 - 1:20
Avg. HR = 154, stupid-high...not sure if it was my faulty monitor, caffeine, or what.