A long Thanksgiving week

It's been a while since the last blog post, but I've been keeping busy.

Last Tuesday  night, I raced in the premier division over at the Manchester Regional Track League.  Once again, racing was really tough.  While I finished each of the events, it was a real effort to get through the 10-mile at the end of the night.

I took Wednesday off (if going to Crossfit counts as a day off) and kicked around Manchester for the day.

On Thursday, I made my way over to Liverpool to visit the Beatles Story at the Albert Docks and checked out the International Slavery Museum (located on the top floor of the maritime museum).

Last time, the line went up the stairs and around the corner, so I had to come back to Liverpool.

The Beatles Story was a highly entertaining collection of Beatles history, memorabilia, and concert posters spanning the Beatles' full range of popular size from the early days of being a local band at the Cavern to the height of Beatlemania.

The International Slavery Museum was an interesting place to visit on Thanksgiving.  It was a sobering reminder that many people have been born into far less favorable situations than I was.

Part of the museum featured a series of quotes from leaders, activists, and others who have been directly involved with the struggle against slavery.  I photographed a few of the quotes, as they were engraved onto the walls:

After learning about the history of slavery, the slave trade, and the on-going struggles with slavery (among other places, slavery still exists in the USA, China, and India).  There certainly is a lot to be thankful for!

After returning to Manchester, I jumped into another crossfit workout Thursday evening; 5 rounds for time of 10 box jumps and 10 pull-ups.

On Saturday, I joined the Crossfit group for a late-lunch at a Brazillian BBQ restaurant, and then we went ice skating and visited a downtown Christmas market.  The ice skating was really fun.  This winter I want to learn and/or try a handful of things including but not limited to: skating fast, winter biathlon, making Glühwein, and building up a pair of bike wheels from scratch.

Over the weekend, I managed to come down with some kind of illness.  In hindsight, I didn't do a good job of eating well and resting enough after all the training and racing this past week, so it is not a huge surprise that my immune system was struggling to keep up.  Still, it's never fun being sick.  After running a fever for a while Sunday afternoon, I slept about 18 hours Sunday night and felt much better Monday morning.

Monday night I headed back to the velodrome for the last night of ACT track league racing.  Normally, having 18 hours of sleep the night before some racing would be great, but having only one of my normal 3-5 meals on Sunday was not so great.  I was able to keep up in all four races, but was in no condition to win anything.  Oh well, it was still a super-fun night!

My appetite returned today, so I'm definitely on the mend, but I decided to sit out racing tonight since my legs were still feeling a little empty after last night.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Germany for more adventures in Berlin.