Turkey Trot Race Report - 5mi

Love me some Turkey Trottin'

This is the third consecutive year Annie and I have made the 15-minute drive over to the Woodlands, TX on Thanksgiving morning. We both really enjoy this race.  Usually it is a rather laid back event that has a 5mi run, 1mi kid's run, and a 5k walk/run.

This year was also the first time we had some decent running weather with the temperature around 45 degrees at the 8:15am start. Last year we suffered through unseasonable heat and humidity and the year before was bitter cold. This was the Goldilocks year.

We met up with our friends Bobby, Jen, and Dave and started to stroll over to the starting area. For some reason everyone but Bobby and me was walking like they were on a casual Sunday afternoon stroll through the mall! And with a few thousand people around we ended up getting separated.

Bobby and I decided to line up at the front of the pack as this race is notorious for having large groups of walkers near the front. We got to the front and I looked around and noticed that there were a lot of skinny, fast looking people today.  All the local Colleges and High School teams were there and we even had a Kenyan in full Spiro gear at the very front! Going be a barn burner!

Okay, I had not really given this race much thought in terms of pacing. This was my third race in 19 days and the legs were a little flat feeling so I just decided to go out hard and back off if it started to hurt.

The gun went off and the opening pace was ridiculous!! About a quarter mile in I looked down at my Garmin and it had a 4:42 in the pace/mi box? Holy shit, this is not sustainable, was my first thought. I backed off and got passed by a couple groups. The legs were not responding very well so I told myself to find a pace that wasn't too painful and just cruise for the middle three miles and then hammer it for mile 5.

The middle three miles were pretty uneventful. I was holding around a 6:35-6:40 pace and was passing a lot of the people that barreled by in the opening mile. Quite a few of the HS kids were now walking at this point as they all learned a valuable lesson about going out to hard!

Mile 4 approached and I decided to step it up and really picked up the pace. I passed a TON of people in the last mile and finished feeling pretty good with a new PR for the 5mi distance. Probably could have went a little harder but that would have put me on the couch for the next couple of days and I had a big weekend of running planned.

Jeff Irvin

GE Run Thru the Woods

The Woodlands, TX - 11/24/2011

Finish Time - 32:20

Overall Rank - 94/2300

Age Group Rank - 10/155

Old PR - 35:45; New PR by 3m25s

Overall I was pleased with my time but sort of disappointed in my AG ranking. In every other AG my time would have been in the top 3. Last year I finished 8th in my AG but was over 3 minutes slower? This means next year the goal is going to have to be a sub-30! It is good to have goals, right?

Annie got herself a new PR as well and had her first race that she averaged under the 8min/mi pace! She is becoming quite speedy!

Mile Splits per Garmin 310xt:

#1 - 6:08

#2 - 6:34

#3 - 6:40

#4 - 6:31

#5 - 6:04

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff