Monday, November 26, 2012

Motivation Monday: FOUND! aka Turkey Trot 5k Race Report



source
I've really lost my motivation lately and running (heck, working out in general) is just HARD. In an effort to rekindle my passion with running, I signed up to run a local Turkey Trot 5k Thanksgiving morning.  To say it helped would be an understatement.
I picked up my race number Wednesday afternoon & was excited about running - a feeling I haven't had since Disney. Thursday morning I headed downtown (the family wasn't even up yet) and got some random stranger to take my picture near the finish line inside the arena.



My plan? Pee, warm up for 1/2 a mile (oops - I started out at about a 9m/m pace), stretch, do some strides, pee, and then run like a deer with a target on its back - and front :)



The plan worked like a charm. I put on my playlist from Wine and Dine but on shuffle and all the right songs hit. It's amazing how that works sometimes.


 I freaked a bit at the end of the first mile when my watch read 9:36 and the mile was mostly uphill. I thought I was screwed - no way I'd hold out. By mile 1.5 I knew I had a PR (and I was wondering why there was no water on the course - first race I've ever been in with ZERO aide stations). By mile 2.5 I knew my PR was going to be huge but the paths near the river were hard to maintain a good pace on because they were so crowded and narrow. I saw my friend, Julie in the last 1/2 mile, plus a ton of students from GRPS were high-5'ing people near the Ford Museum. The course got really crowded on this section, too, with some tight curves and I got stuck behind some slower runners. Once I got to the blue bridge I tried counting "kills" - I passed at least 2 guys on the bridge and a bunch more as we rounded the corner to the arena.  There's a special level of satisfaction in chicking dudes and no way was I going to slow down. One of my friends always says, "You can breathe when you're done" and that was my mantra for the last 1/2 mile.  I was sucking wind, but I saw some high 7s on my watch in that final stretch!



SUB-30!!!!

My watch lost the signal in the arena & was really bouncing around outside with the tall buildings and overpasses (you should see the Garmin Connect data - it's insane), so the course *might* have been .1 short, but I don't think it was (other people had distances from 2.9 to 3.2, so I figure the course was accurate). I wish they'd had the screens on in the arena, but it was really dark.  I saw a volunteer who I had chatted with before the race and he said "you made it - no one shot you!" He gave me a hug and I headed out to find water.  Outside I ran into a couple other friends and it was awesome to celebrate my run with them (one of them hit a HUGE PR of his own - holy fastness, Batman!).

My official results: 28:15 (9:07 ave pace - who am I?!?!?)
28/94 in my age group - top 30%!
315/920 women
847/1745 overall

I CRUSHED my previous PR by 5 min & 25 seconds!!!!
I guess all that distance work, speedwork & tempo runs weren't for nothing. Want to know how to train for a banging 5k? Train for a half marathon :)



That's one thankful, happy, little deer :)
Did you turkey trot this year? How did it go?

ps - I drew for a winner of my Chica Band giveaway from Suddora on Thursday but haven't heard from her yet. If I don't hear from her by Tonight at 8 pm, I'll draw another winner!

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