The Most Fun Race Ever!

People in town, parties and work colluded to make me be a late poster on the Turkey Trot, hosted by my very own club: PPTC.

I have never had so much fun in a race. There are photos of me and Gorgeous near the finish, where we are smiling and laughing. When does THAT ever happen?!

Of course, it helped that we weren't really racing! Hehe. I'll have to do this again!

Suave and Intellectual Rapier came into town really late the night before the race. With entertaining and cooking to do, I knew I wouldn't be in the right mindset or physical place to actually race the Turkey Trot the next day.

So I arranged with Gorges to just do a nice tempo run, with a bit of a relaxed run afterwards. What a great decision!

Took a car to the race, instead of doing my usual run, because Intellectual Rapier was also running the Turkey Trot and didn't think she could add on an addtional 2+ miles before the start. That was a bit frustrating but it also meant that the morning of the race was unusually calm. There were no problems with drop-off, as the police had marked out a place for cars to pull over on Ocean Avenue, solving what would otherwise be terrible traffic problems due to the large number of people swarming out of cars near Lincoln Road.
Got to the bag drop-off in plenty of time and went to find Gorgeous, who was volunteering. Found her and waited for a bit in the Audubon Center, as it was very cold outside.

Wished for the weather we had experienced two days prior to the race. Now that would have been ideal conditions!

There were some tense moments when we were waiting for Gorgeous to use the rest room and I was afraid we'd miss the start.

Then I remembered that I wasn't racing and that it didn't matter! The shoulders relaxed from around my ears and my fists unclenched. Then they clenched again because I was freezing!

We decided to start further back than usual because the gun was 30 seconds from going off and because we weren't interested in going out really fast. This proved to be a bit of a mistake.

Lots of people + no corrals + people who have no idea where to put themselves in a race start + a really tight turn straight off in the race = major logjam. This is actually my one complaint about the race and we likely could have had a different experience had we actually started earlier. Too many really slow people with some not-as-slow people led to a really terrible first mile. Gorgeous will have to give the details but I think it was something like 9+ minutes.

Sheesh.

The rest of the way, though, was fantastic! When we got to mile 3, I actually thought "Wow! We're here already!" This never happens in a 5-miler! Usually, at that point, I am thinking "Holy crap! I still have 2 miles to go!"

There were a couple of times in the race where I'd surge and Gorgeous would look at me like I was crazy. It was after I got out of earshot that I'd explain. One man and several women tried to race us as we passed them.

We started out far behind that we were passing people the whole way, even though we weren't racing it. And the locations in the race where we passed these people were locations where they would still have to go a fair ways. I didn't want to be responsible for someone crashing and burning during the last mile because I was having a fun run! That would have made me feel really bad.

And I also was really happy for the cheerers but felt a bit bad that they would cheer enthusiastically for us when we didn't really need the encouragement. They could have spent their energy on people for whom the cheering really would have helped! I know it helps in races where I'm trying to go for it!

Maybe, if I do this again, I could just put on a bib that said: Fun run

We got near the finish and picked it up. Actually, I think we picked it up the entire last mile. As usual, Gorgeous gives me a smile and says "try to catch up!"

She passed me easily and raced through the finish first. Wow!

The last mile was under 7/mile pace. I think it was more like 6:45 or so. Not bad! Just shows how we weren't really pushing it so much the rest of the time.
Finished in something like 35:33. Age Graded % a rightfully low 68.4% Fun factor: 100!

We then ran back and cheered other people on, adding about another 2 1/2 miles.

Whee!

Finished off this love-fest by walking home and gabbing with Intellectual Rapier the whole way, then getting coffee and cooking! I love days like this!

I was trying to put a picture in of the incredible: me smiling at the end of the race. However, I couldn't figure out how to do this. Anyone know who might like to share with me?