2013 Turkey Trot recap

I don’t know what it is, but I seem to have race related bad luck. I am always injured or sick leading up to all my races lately. It’s a really annoying trend!

I was really looking forward to the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot this year, and hoping to have a new 5K PR.  Unfortunately, I woke up the day before with a horrible sore throat. After resting most of Wednesday and drinking a 1/2 gallon of OJ, I decided to go ahead race. The weather was on the nice side, and worst case, I would just walk more than usual.

The Turkey Trot is a family tradition for me. Albeit one that I started, but sometimes those are the best kind. My mom, her husband, and my husband all run each year. Mom and Michael come over for dinner the night before, spend the night at our place, and we all drive over together in the morning.

This year, I made a tactical error and followed the official race instructions for “getting there.” The race course was in our way and it seems at every turn we couldn’t get through. Finally, we gave up and back tracked, and basically drove all the way around. Good thing I made sure we left with plenty of time to spare!

There were 28,000 registrants for the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot races this year. That’s a lot of people all piled into downtown San Jose. It certainly felt like they were ALL running the 5k too. Last year, we went in the last corral, and we had to smash our way through what seemed like walls of walkers.

There was some controversy with our group about where to go, but I just wasn’t comfortable starting in an earlier corral if we weren’t at that pace. We settled on the 10-11 minute corral, which is actually where I should be. Even so, there was still a wave or two of walkers to push past just after the start line.

David and I got ahead of my mom and Michael pretty quickly, and David said that this year his goal was just to try to keep up with me. I’m the runner of the two of us, and he’s really only running these for me.

Once we got past the walkers, everything seemed good, and I tried to get myself into a nice 10:30 pace groove, as that was my goal. Of course, I knew that there was high probability of not meeting this goal, but if I don’t push myself, I know I will slack off. Right from the start, it seemed like I was a minute plus behind. At first, I blamed the crowds of walkers. Then slowly, over the first mile, I was able to creep closer and closer to my goal pace.

Somewhere around 3/4 of a mile I lost track of David. Around mile 2, I just couldn’t keep up my pace, and had to take a short walk break (30-60 seconds). Another maybe 1/2 mile later, and a quick one just before the finish stretch.

The one thing that really bugged me this year was all the walkers coming up to the finish line. It’s one thing to be walking just past the starting line, as the corrals do move in one huge wave and it’s hard to get a running start, but PLEASE, if you are walking the last 1/10 mile to the finish line, STAY OUT OF THE WAY of people who are running.

The good news: I beat everyone in my family.  🙂

The bad news: I was about 55 seconds per mile behind my goal pace.  🙁

The mileage shown is a little off, so my actual pace was 11:24, and my official chip time was 35:22.  Exactly 20 seconds slower than last year.

Now, let’s just hope I’m not sick or injured next year, and can finally have that PR!

Oh, and here’s David and I before the race…