TG Turkey Trots

The infamous number-less bibs:



Pre-race crowd shots taken by my mom:


My dad and me post-race (he walked it):


Post-race climbing:

Happy day of sloth peeps!

I am so friggin starving but made the mistake of buying this huge bird that requires like five hours of cooking. I just want a heaping plate of stuffing!

I did the "Turkey Trot at the Zoo" put on by the ORCC. This was my first turkey trot ever! I love starting the day this way - brisk at the crack of dawn, busting out a few miles before jamming my grill full of awesome comfort food and wine/champagne. I am a woman of extremes so I love excess in either direction.

Anywho - last night I stayed up late for my parents arrival and slept on an inflatable bed. I did not sleep well and surprise, my alarm did not go off at 6 as planned, rather I woke up on my own at 6:30. (I hate my f'ing phone.) Had to rush and get the rents out the door. Took Max to the Washington Park stop which was totally convenient and perfect. Picked up the weirdest bibs that I've ever seen (no numbers, all the same), waited in a long line for the inside bathroom, ditched my parents and started searching for Sarah and Amy. These are people I've never seen before live but I figured I could seek them out based off of the internet still shots I've seen. I found them right away and we chatted for a while as the race coordinators decided to delay the start.

Finally we were off and I scurried in any direction to gain forward motion. There were walkers, kids, strollers to dodge. I'm not sure how long it took me to get some open space but it felt like a while. Once the hill became pretty steep I became obnoxiously fast and careened my way down as much as I could. I have a secret here people, and it is called gravity - you don't have to do any work! You can seriously fly if you just let mother nature take over.

Once I hit the turnaround I'd covered about 1.75 miles (according to my Garmin) and began the uphill portion of the race. The hills were not easy but definitely not as bad as I had imagined. Many times I want to just stop for a breather but I did not. I feel like I ended up picking quite a few people off on the uphill but then settled into a spot where I was basically neck and neck with a couple of peeps toward the end. I always feel awkward totally jocking on someone's behind, but what are you going to do? The last half mile was kind of weird, downhill but twisting and turning through the actual zoo on sharp corners. There was no way to tell when to really kick it in because I could not see the finish line. I crossed the line and stopped my watch at 3.96 miles and 30:30 time, which evens out to 7:45 miles. Not as fast as I'd hoped but better than I would have done a month ago. I think that had it not been for the clogged up start, or the massive few uphills I could have shaved off at least 30-60 more seconds. Who knows?

(I'm now finishing up this post a few days later, so nevermind the tense changing from the beginning...) Then after that we cooked the bird, went to my friends, drank wine and then we all died. (I stole that last line from someone else.)

Sarah put together a race report on the trot that is pretty awesome. I had no idea what this "shirt that runs" thing was until I just read the site last night. Pretty cool!

Now it is Sunday and I have to start running again. The last two off days have been awesome and today is only a 6 mile run. I have a feeling that my training is going to get increasingly harder over the next few weeks. I need to re-set my mind and think in terms of handling the load during work travel, etc. I think I am prepared but you never know.