Trotting

Thursday morning was my turkey trot. Forecast was cold, in the 30s, but the sun came out strong once we got there and I took off several layers before getting ready to line up. And then Dave pressured me to take off my long sleeve shirt, leaving just a short sleeve tech tee underneath. Hesitated, hesitated, but decided he was probably right, so I stuffed it in the stroller with about 4 minutes to go until the start. Kept my gloves, though.

Lined up near the front, but about 6 rows back. I know there are some speedy folks at this Turkey Trot these days, but I didn't want to get behind people out for a morning stroll. Somehow this still happened, even though I was right up close, but I probably lost just a few seconds.

Race starts downhill to the first turn and basically trends downhill, then there is a long climb, then repeats this twice, with each decent and climb becoming a little shorter.

When I started my specific training 10 weeks ago, I had to do a timed mile to set paces. I was not thrilled to learn that my timed mile pace had fallen to 7:23, and that was at the track! According to the plan, that meant my race should be at 7:45s or 8s, and I was not down with that, so I had hoped that my fitness would come back with the focused training. Therefore, I was pleased and a little concerned to find my first mile to be 7:04. "Just don't lose it in the second half!"

Usually I have a decent sense of where I am in the field as I run, but I couldn't tell who around me was in my age group, not to mention that the race was chipped, unlike the Backyard Burns, so order over the line doesn't matter, chip time does. So I just went my hardest. There is a hill right in the last half mile that is a bit of a pincher and that is really where it hurt the most, but I tried to stride it out through the finish and ended up with a 22:31, for a 7:15 pace average and 10th in my age group. Not my best, but I am pretty happy with that right now.

I tend to obsess over results, I might have mentioned that, no? So, I have two observations. And a bonus observation. The first is that there were women in my age group who finished 9, 13, and 14 seconds ahead of me. Sure 5 seconds a mile is something, but I never help wondering if I could have found a few of those seconds somewhere with a little more pain or a better line.

The second is that my two most recent results in this trot were 21:20ish in 2010 and a 21:40ish the year before that. Of course you can never compare one race to another like I am about to do, but a 21:20 would have been a podium finish this year. Anyway, I would like to be there again, so maybe I will shoot for it next time I race it (I might be pushing the baby and running with a 5 year old next year so my husband can race, so I guess this might mean 2014 - that's a pretty long-term goal for a 5k...)

Bonus observation: The four fastest women were under 20 years old (16, 16, 19, 19), then the 30-somethings started finishing with a few more teenagers interspersed, including a 14 year old. The first 20-something didn't come in until 12th. I thought this was odd, but Dave pointed out all the 20 year olds might have just been out late the night before...

Next up: Maybe one more cross race if I can swing it and then trying to figure out how to train for a series of 5 hilly 5-mile trail races and an almost pancake flat half marathon at the same time. I can be at my peak for all 6 of those races, right?