This race was the first race that I ever ran seriously, back in 2003. I know, that’s not all that long ago, but it is as far as my running comfort level goes. Back then my goal was to break 45:00, and I didn’t quite make it, coming across the line in 45:44. Last year I did much better even with a mild achillies injury, finishing with a much more respectable 38:23. This year, going into the race I was still recovering from NYC and fighting down a cold, but I’ve had a lot more training. My goal was to run comfortably hard, and bring home a 37:30 (that’s a 7:30 pace).

I arrived at the race far too early, as always. The race didn’t start until 9:30, which means meeting to warm up at 8:30, and I was probably there closer to 8:00. I was happy to be able to chat with Carrie for a few minutes before the race - it turns out that she’s not only a Boston-qualifying Gazelle (and a hoot to run with), but she’d been the race director since my first Turkey Trot. How cool is that? Things seemed to be going very smoothly, with the only fly in the ointment being that my Garmin was out of juice. Ah, well.

By around 8:30 I’d met up with Alex, David, Muna and Leslie. David’s phone uses the USB-micro plug to charge, just like the Garmin does, so he was kind enough to include his car in the warmup loop to give me 20 minutes of juice… unfortunately, his 12V socket isn’t on without the key, so we gave up on that idea. We put down almost two miles at a comfortably slow pace, then some of the group went off to do drills while I returned to my car to drop off my shirt, and my pretty useless Forerunner.

We chatted around for a while and pushed our way into the chute at about 9:20, lining up around the “6:30″ group according to the pace signs. This is always a hard race to judge your start position on, since there tends to be a large number of folk who don’t do any other race all year long (we had over 8,000 participants today). It ended up being about right. We waited for the wheelchair start, then moved up and headed out after the airhorn, crossing the start line around 12 seconds later.

David, Muna and I ran together for the first half mile or so, after which point David began to pull ahead slowly on the uphill and Muna dropped back a little. Considering how many newbies run this race, it really is a pretty challenging course with lots of hills and quite a few turns. I let David go, and just concentrated on running happy.

I ran by the one mile marker as it was saying 7:40 - I didn’t know what my differntial was, but figured I was right on pace, which was correct. By mile two David was a good 20 seconds ahead of me, and I clocked it in at a hair under 7:30 again. So far so good. I missed the three mile marker completely, coming down Red River, but passed the mile four point right at 30:00 clock time. That was good to see, and I had to tell myself that there was only one mile left and that I could start sqeezing out a little more speed. For the most part, though, I just ran in a pack of similar-paced people.

I realize that I’m not talking much about the race itself. Honestly, it was fun but not particularly memorable this year. I was running well, not going all out but not holding back a huge amount, and it felt good - a large race is always fun - just not “special,” this time around.

The last mile of this race is a real PITA. That’s what makes it fun, I guess. You make a right turn and run up 10th St, a really good hill that always makes me pant (and makes more than a few folk walk). Then a right turn onto Trinity, up another hill, down a little, up one more hill and then a long downhill sprint to the finish. Gilbert was waiting at the top of the first hill on Trinity; I ran past him and tried to kick down well for the last uphill not wanting to lose my momentum.

As we crested the last hill and could see the finish line everybody put on a good finishing burst and we surged down towards the line. I was able to pass a few people but not many, and I was actually passed right at the end by someone flying past me. He also cut in front of me and came to a complete stop just past the timing mats, so I ran into him rather than jamming my knees up by stopping too soon. David was waiting in the chute - he’d had another great race, and beat me very solidly by about 20 seconds.

My final time this year was 37:01.8 (7:24 pace), 30 seconds faster than my goal and 1:21 faster than last year. It was a lot of fun, I got to see a bunch of running buddies, and Goodwill earned themselves two more shirts (one race, one volunteer from stuffing packets). I went from 343rd place last year to 284th this time around, a pretty decent gain. Maybe next year I can be closer to a 7:00 pace.

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