100th Thanksgiving 10K Turkey Trot

This past Thursday I ran in the 100th 10K Turkey Trot, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The biggest holiday 10K in the world...according to the organizers. There were over 17,000 runners registered, and it was a beautiful day to run. Sun was out, temps were in the 40's, and only a little bit of a breeze.

I'd gotten a message from my friend Lance, who lives down in Birmingham, Alabama, but has a wife who's from Cincy. He said that he'd be running it, and wanted to know if I wanted to run too. Sounded like a great idea to me, so we made plans to meet up and we'd have a nice run together. He's about to run the St. Jude Memphis Marathon on 12/5, so he wasn't looking to race this 10K, which was A-OK by me. I'm still not 100% recovered from running the marathon in Indy. I have good days, and I have days where my legs still fell fatigued. Thankfully, on this day, my legs felt very good. We planned to cruise around in around 8:30/mile, his planned marathon pace.

First mile was a little on the slow side, but not bad. The rest were all right about on pace. He asked if I wanted to kick it up a bit on the final mile or so, and I said whatever he wanted to run, I'd run right along side of him. I didn't have to worry about a marathon the following week. So we picked up the pace after mile 5. Felt good to stride out a bit and get that turnover. No sprinting, just a nice pickup. Effort level at around 7.5/10. Our splits were...

1...8:41
2...8:18
3...8:21
4...8:25
5...8:21
6...7:14

Finished in a time of 51:19 (8:18/mile). Had a great, great time. Lance picked my brain about what worked and didn't work at my marathon 2.5 weeks earlier, and I was happy to share. We talked about mutual friends, and family, and about how much we were looking forward to the rest of the day. I'd love to run this every year. It's so nice to get up early, get out in those crisp temperatures, and get a nice run in before going and eating like an idiot...which I totally did, and LOVED! =)

He we were at the finish. Happy as could be.

I normally race, and almost exclusively train, alone. And that's fine. I like it that way. I like getting out there to run, and being able to think and reflect on whatever I want to. But to go out for a friendly run, with friends, on a beautiful day, and share that experience is something I very much enjoy too. I hope to do this more often than I do. Matter of fact, this weekend is the Jingle Bell 5K Run. My wife is going to run with Melanie, her 10-year old daughter, and I'm going to run with a past co-worker who has recently taken running back up. He ran 3 consecutive miles for the first time last weekend, and I twisted his arm into signing up for the race. I'll be running alongside him. Can't wait.