2006 Turkey Trot 5 Mile
I'm not sure how, but I made it through the Turkey Trot 5 miler. The McMillan running calculator thinks I can do a 5 miler in 52:57 which I definitely think is doable. However, with my being sick and the tough course (whoa! hilly!) I ended up coming in at 55:21. I'll take it.
While I was waiting in line for the port-a-potty, I saw Amy who asked me how I was feeling and I explained that I decided to go the cold medicine route. Running half asleep seemed more appealing than running with a fit of coughing and hacking. As soon as she walked off I realized I forgot to ask her how she was feeling since she also has the plague. Then I felt like a dork for being so rude as not to inquire and decided to chalk it up to the haze of cold medicine.
I emerged from the port-a-potty (OMG, grossest port-a-potty ever, that includes the icky one outside RunTex) in time to hear the national anthem start. I was feeling grouchy and ignored the dirty looks from those standing tall and patriotic with their hands on their hearts as we tried to find the appropriate place to start.
They had people with signs up indicating pace time. The port-a-potties were around the 6 minute mile sign so we made our way back from there. By the time the national anthem was over, we were at the 9 minute mile sign and we were realizing that people were not queued up properly. How did I know? Well, I could just tell by looking at them. Don't mistake me, I wasn't judging people's fitness based on their weight. There are plenty of people much heavier than I who can outrun me. Jean shorts, ratty sneakers and the official race t-shirt are a dead giveaway for an inexperienced racer.
We decided to park ourselves between the 9 minute mile and 10 minute mile signs. We knew we weren't going to run that fast, but I didn't want to run around any more people than I had to. Why couldn't people line themselves up properly? Either they didn't care, didn't know there was a system, or had no clue what their pace would be. I think the announcer should have announced it, the people with the signs should have been announcing it and there should have been something in the race packet explaining it.
BTW, this was the most disappointing race packet EVER. It was our bib number in a bag. Seriously, that was it! On the plus side, we could chose $10 in Thundercloud subs gift certificates over the t-shirt.
So the race began and it took us forever to even get to the starting line. Once we got there things spread out a bit, but not much. In my mind I thought "It's Disney all over again!" During the whole first mile I was really really angry and agitated and very nearly screamed at 5 people walking slowly side by side in a line across the road. They were taking up half the road!
The race continued like that the whole way. I was passing walkers until the end which made no sense to me. I thought eventually I'd finally get past them all, but they must have lined themselves up all the way to the beginning. Now I'm all for people being fit and healthy and walking 5 miles Thanksgiving morning, but they are going to walk, at the very least they needed to line themselves up further to the back so that those of us who want to run can do so unencumbered.
There were some nasty hills in the race and I was having a hard time. I felt tired and hot (that weird kind of sick hot). At mile 2 I was wishing it were a 5k so I was only a mile from being finished. At mile 3 I took no comfort that I only had 2 miles to go. At the mile 4 marker I surprised myself by realizing that I was actually starting to feel not too bad so I began to push the last mile. That plan worked fine for about a half mile, then we turned a corner and there was suddenly a HUGE steep hill in front of me. It was a "run from hell" type hill. I relaxed up it, pumping my arms to get to the top. After that, I was pretty much out of energy and just tried to relax the rest of the way in. There was a nice little downhill at the end which was good because I had nothing left to kick it up and surge to the finish.
Total time: 55:21.0 11:04 minute mile average
Splits:
Mile 1 11:12
Mile 2 10:48
Mile 3 11:18
Mile 4 11:10
Mile 5 10:35
While I was waiting in line for the port-a-potty, I saw Amy who asked me how I was feeling and I explained that I decided to go the cold medicine route. Running half asleep seemed more appealing than running with a fit of coughing and hacking. As soon as she walked off I realized I forgot to ask her how she was feeling since she also has the plague. Then I felt like a dork for being so rude as not to inquire and decided to chalk it up to the haze of cold medicine.
I emerged from the port-a-potty (OMG, grossest port-a-potty ever, that includes the icky one outside RunTex) in time to hear the national anthem start. I was feeling grouchy and ignored the dirty looks from those standing tall and patriotic with their hands on their hearts as we tried to find the appropriate place to start.
They had people with signs up indicating pace time. The port-a-potties were around the 6 minute mile sign so we made our way back from there. By the time the national anthem was over, we were at the 9 minute mile sign and we were realizing that people were not queued up properly. How did I know? Well, I could just tell by looking at them. Don't mistake me, I wasn't judging people's fitness based on their weight. There are plenty of people much heavier than I who can outrun me. Jean shorts, ratty sneakers and the official race t-shirt are a dead giveaway for an inexperienced racer.
We decided to park ourselves between the 9 minute mile and 10 minute mile signs. We knew we weren't going to run that fast, but I didn't want to run around any more people than I had to. Why couldn't people line themselves up properly? Either they didn't care, didn't know there was a system, or had no clue what their pace would be. I think the announcer should have announced it, the people with the signs should have been announcing it and there should have been something in the race packet explaining it.
BTW, this was the most disappointing race packet EVER. It was our bib number in a bag. Seriously, that was it! On the plus side, we could chose $10 in Thundercloud subs gift certificates over the t-shirt.
So the race began and it took us forever to even get to the starting line. Once we got there things spread out a bit, but not much. In my mind I thought "It's Disney all over again!" During the whole first mile I was really really angry and agitated and very nearly screamed at 5 people walking slowly side by side in a line across the road. They were taking up half the road!
The race continued like that the whole way. I was passing walkers until the end which made no sense to me. I thought eventually I'd finally get past them all, but they must have lined themselves up all the way to the beginning. Now I'm all for people being fit and healthy and walking 5 miles Thanksgiving morning, but they are going to walk, at the very least they needed to line themselves up further to the back so that those of us who want to run can do so unencumbered.
There were some nasty hills in the race and I was having a hard time. I felt tired and hot (that weird kind of sick hot). At mile 2 I was wishing it were a 5k so I was only a mile from being finished. At mile 3 I took no comfort that I only had 2 miles to go. At the mile 4 marker I surprised myself by realizing that I was actually starting to feel not too bad so I began to push the last mile. That plan worked fine for about a half mile, then we turned a corner and there was suddenly a HUGE steep hill in front of me. It was a "run from hell" type hill. I relaxed up it, pumping my arms to get to the top. After that, I was pretty much out of energy and just tried to relax the rest of the way in. There was a nice little downhill at the end which was good because I had nothing left to kick it up and surge to the finish.
Total time: 55:21.0 11:04 minute mile average
Splits:
Mile 1 11:12
Mile 2 10:48
Mile 3 11:18
Mile 4 11:10
Mile 5 10:35
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