Week 2: Reconnections, Runs, and Holiday Cheer: A Week to Remember
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Henry Ford
By: Hong Bing Tang December 29th, 2024
12/23/2024 to 12/29/2024
Introduction:
Hi there everyone! I’m sure that your week was amazing with being able to reconnect with family and friends. This holiday season for me was filled with getting back in touch with some friends and spending quality time with the family. Let’s get into the action-packed week!
Runs/Cross Training:
After a rocky week of running last week, I was ready to get back into training and hope that my Piriformis was feeling better after taking a couple of day to cross train. This week was very special week of running since every single day I ran with someone and had no solo runs throughout the week. I started off the week by running with Clay, Will, Adam, Joey, and Andrew Sesti. It was a Clarkston and Lake Orion graduate class of 2022 reunion you could call it. Next on Tuesday I ran with Clay and Carson. On Christmas day I ran with Will at the OG place or Lake Orion high school. Then on Thursday I ran with Zach Petricia who I hadn’t see since the summer. Friday I went back to Waldon for the 4th time that week and ran with Carson, Clay, and Luke. Finally to finish up the good week of running, today I ran my long run start form Hanson’s with Adam and a couple of Co-workers and other college athletes. I am super glad that my piriformis is feeling a lot better than last week and was fortunate enough to be able to run the whole week. Since the load was a little bit lower this week, I decided to also sprinkle in some cross training and it went well! I am looking forward to this upcoming week when I start doing some workouts!
Touching Base:
I spent a lot of this week with many different people; a lot of these people I had not seen since the summer so there was a lot of catching up to do! First I had to of course get a run in with Zach. I was excited to learn that he was doing good and had a good semester at OU. Additionally Zach has been keeping up with running and was balancing things really well. I am excited to see how he progresses and see him break 50s in the 400m. Additionally I also was able to give Jessie a call and learn about her cruise that she had go on with her mom, grandma, and aunts, along with what she has been doing over the last 2 weeks of winter break. I was really good to be able to talk to her and I am excited to go back to campus to see her.
Additionally, today one of my high school friend groups meet up and we had a lunch together. Other than Zach, I had not seen Connor and Tony since the summer going into our sophomore year which felt like yesterday. We talked about how each of us were doing in school, and how life was like. Connor had some pretty interesting stories about his trips that he had taken, along with the sail boat that his parents had. Everyone is doing pretty well and I am glad that we all were able to meet up!
Pet Sitting:
My sister decided to leave Addy with us even after she got back since she would be back for Christmas and would take her back after the holidays. So we got to keep addy a little longer than I had expected. What I learned over having her the last weeks was that she is a very affectite cat and loves to be around people. She would sleep with my brother and I during the night along with follow us around and beg for pets, which of course we would give. Additionally she loved to sit inside any boxes. She was the queen of boxes I guess you wopuld say. Unfortunately on the 26th my sister left our hosue to go back to her place and took Addy with her. I’m a little sad that she is not in our house anymore but super happy that I got to spend the week with her 😊
Christmas Eve:
For Christmas Eve our family did a hot pot dinner. We had a variety of things such as noodles, dumplings, veggies, quail eggs, beef, crab, meatballs, fish balls, and a variety of other times. Hot Pot is one of my favorite meals since I can eat a lot of food and also there is so much variety so if I am not feeling something I can eat many other things. Plus it was the first time we had a full family meal in a while so it was amazing to be together.
After dinner we all headed to the living room and watched a Christmas movie. We decided to watch Red One which was a recently released Christmas movie starring the rock. I feel that nearly all of the movies that star The Rock as a main character follow a very similar story line and this movie was very similar and the same elements as the other movies that star him as well. It was an okay movie but at the same time I was expecting it to be as well. It was still nice to have a movie time with the fam though.
Christmas:
The last couple of years my high school running friends have done a Christmas run with each other, but I have never been able to make it out due to not being in town or being busy. This year since I was in town I wanted to try to run with everyone at Christmas. Unfortunately, everyone was pretty busy so only Will was able to run with me. Sadly, this year it was not a white Christmas, but the weather was nice running weather. Will and I ran from the high school to take us back to the old days and it was awesome to run with him individually so I could hear about his experiences at Adrian college and his running journey there. He is doing well at Adrian, but I think he struggles since none of his teammates are nearly as fast as him, so most of his training is very individual. Since we were talking most of the time, the run flew by and soon enough we had completed 9 miles. Overall, a very fun run!
Soon after the run, we had our Christmas dinner, it was just our family plus Evan. My dad decided to cook us some Roast Beef that was slowly cooked in the Oven with a variety of other veggies, and side dishes like Spring rolls and Dumplings. It was very delicious, and the beef was tender, flavorful, and thankfully not dry. It was a great dinner. After we took some pictures and then opened my presents. This year I asked for a Wok and some winter boots and got both of those items. It was a very good Christmas, and I am grateful to spend some quality time with my parents and siblings.
Collab?
On Friday night Danny invited a couple of us over to spend the night and hang out. He invited Troy, Ethan and I, which is our middle school friend group but also invited CJ, Ryan, Ben, and Nathan as well. All these other guys were Danny’s other friend group in high school, and I was never close with any of them but knew some of them since I had class with them. We played some ping pong which they were all good at, especially Ryan and CJ who were good at hitting hard to return balls. After ping pong, we played some Picturika which was a fun but hard board game where you would have to find a certain number of objects or a specific object on a board that was filled with about 500 different objects. It was very hard, but I was able to win a couple of rounds which I was proud of. Then after playing Picturika, we played the adult version of head up where each person would have 1 minute to answer yes or no questions to the group to try guess the item, person, or place that they would not see but everyone else could see. Ben, Danny, and Nathan were great at the game. I was able to get all of mine after a couple of rounds and had to guess pickles, circus, flowers, and meatballs. We played that game for nearly two hours and after settled down and watched the movie Zoolander, but I only made it roughly 30 minutes since it was so late before I fell asleep. It was awesome to meet and hang out with Danny’s other friends from high school since they were friendly, outgoing, and welcoming
Friendsmas:
The last event of the week was Friendsmas and our Old neighbor’s house on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was working so I showed up to their house late and was not able to eat dinner together with everyone, but I still was able to get some delicious food that included mashed potatoes, carrots, ham, and sweet pork. Also, they had various desserts like Hershey kiss pretzel bites, cookies, and buckeyes. After dinner I watched some people play a video game on the switch that was very similar to water boy and fire girl but with 4 people and involved teamwork and coordination to beat many different task and obstacles. After video games we did a white elephant with all of us. Since there were thirteen of us it could have been a very chaotic game where people would steal things from each other but luckily stealing did not happen until the very end of the game. After everything was settled, I had successfully not been stolen from and got a mug, some popcorn goodies, and some cool socks! When the white elephant finished it was getting a little late, so the party started to trickle, and we left shortly after.
Conclusion:
This week has been filled with reconnections, memories, and moments of joy, from running with friends to enjoying holiday traditions. It’s been a time to catch up, reflect, and appreciate the people and experiences that have shaped the past year. Whether it was the laughter shared with old friends, the warmth of family gatherings, or the simple pleasures of spending time with pets, this holiday season has reminded me of the importance of staying connected and being present in the moment. I’m excited about what the next week brings and looking forward to the new year ahead!
Get in Touch
Got questions or want to chat? Drop a line. I love connecting with new friends!