Turkey Trek

Ran a 5K in my hometown of Stratford this morning. Drove down to the center of town in Nathan's car from my parents' house where I slept last night. I registered, got a doughnut and my race T-shirt, and headed back to the car to keep warm. When I left the comfort of the finely engineered German automobile, the outside temperature displayed on the dashboard read 39 degrees Fahrenheit. I was wearing shorts with my TFK T-shirt and a regular sweatshirt over it.

The race was pretty small compared to the last one I did 2 1/2 weeks ago: instead of a cannon, the race started with a guy yelling, "Go!" I moved toward the front of the pack pretty quickly and hung out there awhile. When we made the turn of the out and back we were running into a stiff headwind. Did I mention it was raining too? I was in front of this big guy but slowed down to let him pass me and drafted him. That is the one lesson I learned from watching the Prefontaine movie "Without Limits". Drafting is good! Especially when there is an 18 mile an hour icy wind coming directly at your face.

My goal for the 5K was to break 20 minutes. My previous PR was 20:43, which was actually a 3.2 mile race in Prospect Park. Apparently they couldn't make a 3.1 race out of it, it had to be 3.2. So anyway I finished strong, as I heard some footsteps behind me which kept me motivated to keep whoever it was from passing me. As I approached the finish line I could see the first digit of the time on the big clock was a 1, and the 2nd digit was either a 9 or an 8, couldn't tell, but as I got within 50 feet or so the 1 turned into a 2, and I crossed the line in a somewhat disappointing 20:04. That was a 6:28 pace, which wasn't too bad considering the miserable conditions. The sub 20 5K will have to wait for another day. :-(

I'm not sure if I won an award or not, didn't stick around to find out. There weren't too many people who finished ahead of me, but unfortunately they all seemed to be guys in their 30's. My arms were completely frozen almost, so I walked around for a couple of minutes and then got in the car and headed back home. 5 minutes later I was in the shower dethawing. My mom told me I was in there for a long time, words to the effect of "The hot water heater only holds 30 gallons!" But it felt good and I got the circulation back in all my extremities.

Let the fueling up for the 60K begin!