Thanksgiving Weekend Wrap-Up

First of all, thanks everyone for all the Philly race report compliments! I apologize for long delay in getting it done. It’s funny how I always end up having too much to say about my races and not enough time to write it all down. I sometimes wonder whether my photographic race memory and novel-ish writing style are blessings or really curses in disguise! Haha! I am only kidding of course because I doubt I’d have it any other way.

Speaking of blessings, I hope everyone had a wonderful time giving thanks and spending quality time with family and friends during the holiday weekend. I myself had a great time hanging out with the family, getting my butt handed to me in ping pong and Guitar Hero, and eating way too much food for way too many days. I also managed to run a tougher-than-expected 20 miler over the weekend on a hilly trail that left me hanging on for dear life at the end of it. My pace was relatively slow (7:30-ish), it was windy and cold, and I was cramping in places that hadn’t been heard from since before NYCM. Ugh! I wonder if it’s a sign of lost fitness or the extra serving or two (or three) of turkey, chocolate cheesecake and sweet potato pie I helped myself to over the preceding three days. Hmmm…

But the highlight of my long weekend was definitely the Garden City Turkey Trot 5 miler I did on Thanksgiving morning. It was a great race not only because I ran well, finishing in 30:17 with a 6:03 avg pace, which is a course PR for me and a 29 second improvement from last year, but it was also the first race ever for my little bro! Before the race, I was so nervous for him (the only 5-miler he’s ever done before was on a treadmill a week before this race!) that I offered to run him in for the last 1.5 miles after I finished if he needed it. It turned out he didn’t need my help at all as he ran pretty conservatively for the first four miles and surged ahead of a lot of people in the last mile! I credit myself for prepping him well. Haha! He finished in the vicinity of 46 minutes and had so much fun that he’s now asking me to enter him in a few more races in the next several months. Will do, little bro, will do!

I’m not going to write a whole long report on my race because it wasn’t a big deal race for me (and I don’t want to overwhelm you all!) but I will share five bullet points from my race experience that I found somewhat interesting:

1. Mile-by-mile splits: M1-5:57, M2-5:55, M3-6:12, M4-6:18, M5-5:51. Wow, look how I died in miles 3 & 4 and yet recovered to run my fastest in M5!
2. If you took the time to add up the splits, you’ll get 30:14, not the 30:17 I was credited with. That’s because this turned out to be a gun-time and not a chip-time race. According to my Garmin time, I came in just one second over my overall 5-mile PR time. So I’ve been wondering, if I happened to have run 2 seconds faster and squeaked in a PR by a second according to my Garmin time (but not gun time), does that still count as a PR for me?
3. Last year, I finished in 30:46 and was 9th out of 268 males in the 30-39 age group. This year, I finished in 30:17 and was 5th out of 334 males in the 30-39 age group. It’s too bad that age group awards go to the top 3, and the 3rd place guy ran 27:47. In other words, I have no shot!
4. I ran this race 4 days after a fast Philly half marathon and did considerably better than I expected. If it was a week later and I had a chance to rest, could I have run an even better time or would I have slowed because of some lost fitness and/or speed? I never felt terribly tired or fatigued during the race so I wonder if it would have even made a difference.
5. Turkey trots should be mandatory as an appetizer to the Thanksgiving feast! 'Nuff said.