Turkey Trot and Turkey Day 2009

I had signed up for the Turkey Trot 4 Miler a few days ago. We were going to be in town on Thanksgiving Day and it sounded like a fun race to do, so the wife was cool with it and I signed up. A few of my friends also signed up for the race, and that always makes it more fun.

(Daniel, Stef, Allen, Lanny, John, me, and Russ)

This race was not anything like I expected though. I thought there would be a few hundred people racing and there ended up being over 2,000 runners in this race. The race was held at Shelby Farms, and pretty much consisted of a loop around the park. The only problem was that the path was only about 5 feet wide at most places, and when you have that many people it is tough to maneuver around them.

(Start of the race, and tons of runners)

The race was suppose to start at 9:00 AM. So my wife (and chief photographer), father in law and I all got to the Farms at about 8:15 or so, and we froze our tails off. I went to hit the porta-potty ( I hate those things) and then wanted to stretch out a little bit before the race. After getting my timing chip, I ran into the gang and we all got ready to race. The elite "faster runners" were suppose to head out 1 minute earlier than the rest of us slackers, but there were so many people there, I could not really tell if they got off early or not. We all started morphing into one huge mob when they sounded the one minute till start warning, so I kissed my wife and she went off to take more pictures.

It took me about 20 seconds to hit the mat once the race started. There were to many walkers and strollers in the front of the line. If you ain't racing, then move it to the back brother! I had in the back of my mind that I was just going to make it a nice easy run since there were so many folks in the way, but once I hit the mat, I saw myself weaving through the people, trying to find some space. I got over to the far left and for the first 1.5 miles, my run was in the grass next to the path. We had all started in a group, but that quickly got disbanded due to all the people. Here are some action shots.

Me flashing the "horns" as I ran

Allen running (Ironman Branson 70.3 co-racer?)

Tigger and Eeyore, Is Eeyore making eyes at the wife?

At the finish line, dude in black shirt is all business

The race went surprisingly well, when it was all said and done. I finished in 32:24, which is an average of 8:06/mile. John and Daniel both beat me, but I wasn't to bothered by that, I was very happy with my time. This is the first "run race" I have done in a long time, meaning that it was only a run. No bike or swim attached to it, so I was unsure of how I would do. I was 46/105 in my AG and 405/1582 Overall.

After the race, I found my wife and we talked about the race and saw some of the group finish, but we got separated from them and did not get to see all of them, so we had to make the cell phone call. We needed to get home, because Emily (wifey) was cooking a huge Thanksgiving meal, and since I had already run, I can eat all I want. Look at the spread she made, and this is only about 1/4 of it!

So, Thanksgiving 2009, was a great day. I had a wonderful meal with my wife and 3 boys and my in-laws. We all spoke about things we were thankful for, then we ate, and we ate! It was a good day.