In what may be at risk of becoming a Thanksgiving tradition, I again ran the 1 mile Tough Turkey race and the 5k Gobble Gallop up in Duluth on Thanksgiving. The difference this year is that I actually intended to run both of them.
As usual, this is a bit of an off-season time for me, so I’m never quite sure how I will feel or how well the races will go when I sign up for these. I was feeling a bit flat the day before, and had pretty well thrown away any real hope of doing well in either race by the time Thursday morning came around.
As she did last year, G had signed up for the 5k only, so I took the opportunity provided by staying with my parents and headed down solo to check in and do my mile warm up routine. It was just above freezing this year, with a tiny bit of moisture in the air. Not ideal conditions by any means for a mile race, but better than last year.
The advantage and disadvantage of racing in your home town, especially when you’re fourth generation in a town of 85,000, is you know a lot of people. There is no hiding in Duluth for me. Prior to the race, I ran into my brother’s best friend and his two kids, as well as his parents and brother (who was also running both races that morning). As I went through my dynamic warm up, I heard an occasional “hi Jamie” from the crowd, not knowing who was saying it. And, of course, I know the RD for this race, so I took a brief second to say hi to him before I finished my warmups.
G and my parents showed up before race time (I think my dad has been on a bit of a nostalgia trip this year, watching me race for the first time since high school) and in time to watch the 1/4 mile kid’s race at 9AM. This is usually a highlight, as all the kids chase a guy dressed up in a turkey costume down the road, and many of them run with their parents. And since it’s a children’s race, they all get to wear bibs with the number “1” on them.
The mile went off at 9:10 on the dot. As usual, it was a much smaller field than the 5k, with only 100 or so runners on the start line. The mile usually has a large number of kids and, as they do, they all took off at an almost absurd pace. I let them sprint their hearts out, taking it out in a quick pace (4:45 or so according to my watch). I don’t know that I could have done anything near a 4:45, but I wanted to see if anybody would make a race of it.
Nobody did, and I eased off to about 5:30 pace or so, and, looking back every hundred meters to make sure nobody was closing, crossed the line in a surprisingly easy 5:40 to win by eight seconds. Unless I am forgetting something, this may be my first overall win since I was a sprinter in high school. The fact that if I had run the 5k at that pace, I would still have been 3 minutes out of first place diminished the elation not one bit. That was the first time I feel like I’ve executed a solid race strategy in a long time.
Of course, the start time of 9:30 for the 5k meant that I now had less than 15 minutes before the start of my next race. I had just enough time to catch my breath (while running to my car), swap out my number, and say hi to my parents before the 5k started. I missed seeing G between the races. And due to apparent blindness on my part, I missed seeing her finish the 5k as well.
As usual, the start of a 5k with 2,200 runners was chaotic. I put myself in the front line, and in the dash from the line got caught heading out a little faster than I intended. This time, though, I quickly sorted myself out and slowed to what I thought would be a sustainable pace.
I actually felt really good throughout this race, countering my feeling at the beginning of the day. I looked at my watch less often than I sometimes do during races, running more by feel than by the watch, and that seemed to work really well. I found myself running with a group of maybe 5 runners taking a similar pace, which made the whole experience easier.
When I did check my watch, for the most part I was surprised by how fast I was running. I was consistently between 6:05 and 6:15 pace throughout the race, only slipping lower than that on the uphill from downtown Duluth up to Fitger’s. Despite the faster pace than last year, I ended up with a lot of gas left in the last half mile, and pushed it in a little faster
I’m actually a little disappointed that I didn’t look at my watch a little more often for the actual time I was running. I finished the race in 19:05 for 27th place over all, and 4th in my age group, but I am quite sure that I could have run a good deal faster if I had pushed a little more. I think in this case I just didn’t have enough faith in my fitness.
I am quite happy over all with the result of these two races. I finished each race faster than I did last year, and finished 40 second up on my combined 1 mile and 5k times from last year.
That said, I got left in the dust by G, who improved on her time by a full 10 minutes. She improved so much that I missed her finish, thinking I would have to run back in the pack a ways to see her . . .
