Happy Turkey Day a day late & a few extra pounds later

Yesterday I got up @ the ass crack of dawn on a holiday to run the 11th annual Turkey Trot. This year 2374 people participated(more than 4000 according to my mom). There were 4 Dunsmuirs entered which I'm sure caused some confusion. My mom (Linda), dad (Brian), & Amber all agreed to walk while I ran for time.

I was hoping to ultimately go under 18 min but was ready to be happy with a sub 18:30. I have a bad habit of going out a little too fast & I figured the large crowd the pace would be a little ridiculous at first. I managed to rein myself in to a semi comfortable 5:34 first mile. I did see the Pettus family in the first mile, they had false started by about a 1/4 mile or so to avoid the crowds. I paid for the first mile in the 2nd mile & was only able to come back with a 5:55. It was weird running around MSU on roads that only this summer I'd been racing around @ over 30+mph. My running was just a little slower(but not much). The 3rd mile is where the hills are. Knowing this I set a survival tempo up the first hill & let gravity take over on the downhill. On the final uphill to the finishing downhill Doug Assenmacher caught me so I had to pick up my pace to stay with him( so I don't have a 3rd mile split maybe around 5:55 again). I was able to use CTS' track workouts to out kick Doug to the finish crossing 22nd overall, 4th in my age group in 18:05. That's 5:50 pace which just so happens to be the pace Scot had me running all my intervals in. Oh so close but I'm still pretty happy considering the little amount of running I do & this is the first 5k I run in over a year.

I jogged back to catch up with my family & walked the last mile or so with them. My mom has never met a stranger & had adopted a new friend along the way. She was regaling her with our life stories. The poor unsuspecting lady will be more cautious who she talks to in the future. I'm very proud of my parents for getting up & walking with my new wife.

After the Trot it was time to return home for the first of 3 Turkey dinners. One @ our house with my best friend Darin, my parents & Amber. The 2nd with Amber's dad's family. The 3rd with Amber's mom's family. Wow that's a lot of eating & traveling. This year work gave us turkeys so Amber & I had 47 pounds btwn 2 birds to cook up. So Darin spent, according to his version of the story, days basting the bird for our feed. The second bird went with Amber's Uncle Jeremy to rub butter on(which he got a little too excited about if you ask me, I'll have to ask his wife about this). Come to think of it she told me about the sex in the pan, so I told her I'd had sex in a lot of places but never a pan. After gorging ourselves & putting on @ least a few extra pounds a piece, could have been more without the Turkey Trot, we were home & in bed asleep by 7:30pm. Thanksgiving gets longer & longer every year.


Looking @ the results I saw a few OCC'ers. Peter Van Off the front I talked to after the race. He ran 22:41. Jim Coker the Mansfield Pill Pusher ran 20:42. Both pretty respectable times for bikers.