Turkey Trot 5mi Race Report

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

Before we get to the RR let's talk about how the day began but first we need a little backstory:

On Wednesday my neighbor Elizabeth and I went grocery shopping since we were all spending Thanksgiving together.  The grocery store was the normal controlled craziness before a holiday that was expected.  Elizabeth is a very good cook and extremely picky about the ingredients that she uses.  So after a careful selection process we picked out a nice 18-LB Turkey.  Since we would be doing Thanksgiving at Elizabeth's house we unloaded most of the groceries there and I was to take the turkey and store it in our fridge because we were going to cook it in our stove and then walk it down to her house.  Easy enough, right?

Fast forward to 5am Thanksgiving morning.  I wake up about a half hour before the alarm and sit straight up in bed as I just remembered something unsettling.  I notice Annie staring at me with a dazed and confused look?  At this point I say to her, "I have made a horrible mistake!" She sits up a little and I proceed to tell her, "I left the Turkey in the trunk of my car!"

Now most of you are probably thinking that this is not that big of a deal.  It is November and the frozen Turkey needed to thaw anyway?.  Well, the temperature was around 80 degrees and we purchased the Turkey thawed.  It is ruined.  And my car is going to smell awful!

At this point I jump out of bed and am in full damage control mode.  Annie informs me that Elizabeth is going to kill me and I should be fearing for my life. She then went back to sleep.  Now I could wait until after the Turkey Trot run and try and find a Turkey but Elizabeth was going to be at our house by 6:30am and if she was, in fact, going to kill me then I needed another solution.

I was in the car by 5:15 and head to the grocery store. Luckily, the ruined turkey in my trunk was double bagged and none of the turkey juice had seeped out - disaster #1 averted!

Normally this grocery store is not opened this early but I rationalized that with it being Thanksgiving that they would be opened early.  AND they were!!!  I hustled to the same aisle we picked up the now rotten Turkey and found an identical one.  It was the last one they had left in this size!  I was back in my kitchen making coffee by 5:35 with the new Turkey awaiting to be roasted in my fridge - disaster #2 averted!

Now time to race!
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The Turkey Trot is a 5miler in the Woodlands (which is where IMTX is located) and we ran it last year.  It was around 40 degrees last year and just perfect running conditions.  This year the weather was far from perfect as it was already in the low 80's and extremely humid.  We had a foursome doing the race of Annie, Elizabeth, my buddy Bobby, and me.  The fun thing about this race is that they always have an awesome pre and post race spread.  Bobby and I did some eating and hydrating before the race like good little triathletes! The girls looked on at us like we were idiots for eating this much before we ran (no foreshadowing here - I just like to eat and usually do not have GI issues when I eat before races).

Last year I laid down a time of 36:27 and my goal this year was to come in under 36 minutes.  I was a little concerned this race was going to hurt because of the unseasonable heat and humidity and also because I have run only 8 miles in the last 3 weeks!  Yes, I know, pathetic, but I am healing up for IMTX training and am nursing a sprained ankle - leave me alone!

Elizabeth and I started about 10 yards from the starting line.  This is one of those races that people start at the 5:30/mi pace corral and proceed to run an 11:00/mi pace and jog 5 people across elbow-to-elbow.  This drives me nuts so we said screw it and started at the front and just ran a 5:30 pace until the crowds thinned out.  Elizabeth is fast so she had no problems with this!

The race started and the first two miles went well as I held a 6:34 and 6:33, respectively.   At about the 2.5 mile mark my lungs were beginning to really feel the humidity and lack of run training over the last three weeks.  The mile 3 split was 7:09 and mile 4 was done at a pedestrian 7:38.  I kicked it in with a 7:08 for the final mile and was in an extreme amount of pain with about a half mile to go. I limped across the finish line and my garmin showed the course to be a little long (same as last year) at 5.12 miles and my final time was 35:45.  This was a new PR by 42 seconds and the most pain I have felt on a short run in a long time.

Results: 35:45
AG Ranking (M35-39):  8/140
Overall Ranking:  128/2266

- Elizabeth finished 6/146 in her AG at 38:00 even.  She is a new runner and keeps getting faster and faster.  She'll be running circles around me in no time!

- Annie finished 28/146 in her AG at 44:18.  She was a trooper because she worked a 14 hour shift on her feet getting ready for Black Friday and didn't get home until 10:30pm Wednesday night.  She is much tougher than me because I never would have run this race if I had to work like that!

- Bobby finished 42/140 in his AG at 41:22.  He has dropped a bunch of weight doing P90X and is becoming quite the speedy runner! I believe this was a PR for Booby.

Overall we had a great time and it is always awesome to get up early and be active before you go and stuff your face.

Enjoy your weekend everyone and Thanks for Reading,

Jeff