Friday, November 29, 2013

Thanksgiving Day Run 2013

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

A day late but I was too busy enjoying the day with my kids and doing my homework to write about the run.

Today was the Mid-Valley Road Race which my family calls the Turkey Trot.  The race organizers need to come up with a catchier name for their race.  They have three options for Thanksgiving Day runners.  There is a 2.5 mile walk, a 3.75 run which is hilly, and the Scenic Challenge which is 5.2 miles and starts on the same route as the 3.75 but the shorter run is an out and back.  The longer run is a big loop that continues up a big stinker of a hill and then has another hill that is gradual but goes on forever.  I have done that loop on my own several times.  I even talked about it here when I finally managed to run the entire thing without stopping.

I have run this race twice before.  The first time was in 2010 when I had been running about 6 months and then again in 2012.

2010 - 47:49 Average Pace 12'55" placed 267 out of 284 and 18 out of 19 in my age group.
2012 - 52:18 Average Pace 14'08" placed 305 out of 318 and 19 out of 19 in my age group.

Last year at this time I had given up.  I hadn't been running at all and had gained back quite a bit of weight.  I was miserable.  There was only two good things about the race.  One was that I did it and the other was that I ran the whole thing.

I was worried about this years race.  I wanted to do better and I haven't done very well the last month with my workouts (as in not getting them done) so I was not expecting to do fantastically well.  I woke up with a little bit of a headache and my stomach hurt.  I didn't really want to get out of bed at all and considering how cold it was staying in bed and sleeping sounded like a better option.  But I dragged my sorry butt out of bed and got ready.  My husband had to work so it was just the youngest goober and myself.

The race started off and as usual I started towards the back but got passed by a ton of people.  It is really hard not to get caught up in the crowd and start off way too fast.  But I've run this route many times so I know the hills that are coming so I just worked on doing my own thing.  At the first half mile split I was keeping a very low 12 minute average pace and I was feeling pretty good.  I figured I would go a bit slower up the hills and try and make up time going down them.

Then I started passing people.  That is still very weird for me.  I usually am the one trudging along at the end of the group and here I am picking people off.  Roadkill is WAY more fun when you are the person doing the passing.  I was getting close to the turn around and was having fun watching the people who were already heading back.  I saw my daughter and was very surprised by the fact that I wasn't as far behind her as I thought I would be.  :)

It is always interesting to watch other people and the way they run or how we get competitive with people we don't even know.  There was a young woman ahead of me that I was slowly catching up with.  She would walk for awhile and then run for a short distance and then walk again.  She was walking when I caught up to her but as soon as I got by her I could hear her coming up behind me and she was running fast.  I admit, I sped up a bit.  She got next to me but I was pretty sure she would start walking again soon.  Sure enough she had to walk and I never saw her again.

There was another woman that was wearing a yellow jacket.  She had a nice steady pace and I was slowly gaining on her as well.  As we came to the corner to turn back onto the main road I passed her.  Then suddenly she goes flying by and I could tell she was working really hard to get in front of me.  But after she got a ways ahead of me she slowed back to the pace that she had before.  I was gaining on her again and once again I passed her.  For the second time I hear her coming and she sprints about 20 feet ahead of me.  I now can see the parking lot where we finish the race.  We have less than .20 miles to go.  I decided that I would like to have my last mile be under 12  minutes and I want to beat the lady in the yellow jacket so I speed up.  This time she tries to stay ahead of me but I was able to keep up the faster pace and ended up beating her by about 30 seconds. I turned around and gave her a high five and told her thank you for the push at the end.  She smiled and said the same thing.  :)

My results from today:

2013 - 44:02 Average Pace 11'54" placed 233 out of 281 and 9 out of 13 in my age group.

That's an 8 minute 16 second improvement from last year and a 3 minute 47 second improvement from the first time I ran this race.  Woot woot!  So much better!  I was so excited about the average pace being under 12 minutes because I don't usually do well when there are hills involved.

After race smiles!!  Love my girl!

I've got some things to be working on in the next few months.  I'll share in another post.  This one is about celebrating a really good day.  :-)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

1 comment:

  1. Great memories! I did a Turkey Trot with Tessa a few years back. She was kind enough to keep my slow pace with me. :)

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