Greencastle Turkey Trot

I've been looking forward to Thanksgiving for quite some time. The local 5K Turkey Trot would be my first repeat race ever and was officially the one that got me hooked on running last year. That also means I've 'officially' been running one year now!

The forecast leading up to Thursday was calling for freezing rain and cold...lovely! After sleeping in until 7 AM on Thursday (felt wonderful), I woke up to rain tapping on the windows. And, it continued to pour down. I had my husband signed up as well and it took some major convincing (perhaps some name calling as well) to convince him to actually participate in this run!

Luckily, as we were pulling into the parking lot, it stopped raining and there was just a mist in the air. Thinking it was going to be a bit miserable, I dressed for rain with a hat, windbreaker, no mp3 player and just my normal Timex which is all I ever wear for races.

Since it stopped raining, I figured I'd do a little bit of a warm up before lining up. I tried to position myself in the middle of the group but I was thinking just before we started I was probably too far back - this is a small event of 300-ish and certainly not chip-timed. I start slow but have been getting a little better at judging where I should start because I've often found I'm way too far in the back.

Anyway, soon we were off and luckily everyone spread out fairly quickly. The course is pretty boring, just a loop through residential areas that starts and ends on the high school track but still certainly a fun way to start Thanksgiving!

I spent the first mile passing people and the guy yelling out times said something around 8:06 when I past so that sounded reasonable to me but I continued to try to pick it up a little and kept passing people. A little before 2 miles, another girl who I anticipated was close to my age caught up to me and just started running right beside me. I wasn't sure how to take this at first, did she just want to pass me or did she want to stick with me? Either way, I figured I'd just try to stick close to her but we ended up running side by side the rest of the race. We never said a word to each other and it was kind of strange yet kind of good at the same time.

As we were coming into the last half mile, we started in an area where it was sidewalks so it was harder to run with this girl. I was trying to be considerate and trying to let her go just a few steps in front of me, yet at the same time, I was wondering if I should have just pushed it to pass her? I probably could have if I really gave it absolutely everything I had but I was already giving it a pretty hard effort (for me) at the pace we were going so I just stuck at it. We were still pretty much side by side until she took a quick sprint right at the end to pass me. Either way, it was a new 5K PR of 25:07 so I'll take it...very close to the 25:00 time I had in my mind as my ultimate goal! I said something to the girl afterwards thanking her for helping me keep up my pace but that was pretty much the end of the conversation. Kind of odd.

My husband had a good race as well and it was his best 5K yet as well. He's not really one for sticking around much so we left just as soon as he finished...we had a dinner to get to anyway! A great way to start Thanksgiving!