5th Annual Turkey Trot - Race Report

You couldn't have asked for a nicer day for a race on Thanksgiving.  It was darn near 50* at the start of the race, mostly clear skies, and the only downfall was the strong winds out of the North.  This was my 3rd Festival Foods Turkey Trot and the 5th year that it has been run.  In the past years it has always started and finished at UW - Fox Valley.  This year is started on College Av in downtown Appleton in front of The Paper Valley Hotel and ended a block away from the start.  It seems that this event seems to grow exponentially each and every year and this year was no exception.  The race organizers offer a 5 mile run and 2 mile walk/run.  Between the two events they draw several thousand participants.  It's pretty impressive actually for a holiday walk/run.  It's pretty motivating to see so many people out to get some form of exercise before the long holiday stretch.  I went into the race in the middle/end of my off season.  I had 2 goals, one "wishful" goal of finishing under 30:00 and a realistic goal of finishing around 31:00.  So here is the race report.  You can click the link directly below for detailed information about the race.  It is the exact information from my Garmin GPS watch.  I just figured out how to embed this into my blogs so this will be something I start to do.

Festival Foods Turkey Trot by brewcrew0031 at Garmin Connect - Details

Training Plan
I have been continuing to follow the same exact "training plan" I have been following since the marathon on October 7th.  That is to concentrate on swimming efficiency and alternate between running and biking on the other days.  I have also been continuing to work in some strength training after swimming as well - nothing real intense but just working basic movements to minimize muscle loss during the off season.  Looking at my weekly totals I have been averaging right about 6 hours of training a week.

Day/Night Before the Race
It was a lay low kind of day on the 21st.  I ran some errends with my youngest daughter including grocery shopping and exchanging some Christmas lights from the house.  After taking care of all that, I finished putting lights on the house and I'm glad to report I did not fall off the roof as I kept thinking was going to happen.  For lunch I had a couple pieces of left over pizza.  As for dinner I ate around 7:30pm and had a grilled Tilapia fillet with lemon infused olive oil and garlic pepper seasoning.  I had a side spinach salad and veggies thrown on top and a home made vinaigrette dressing.  To complete the meal and top off glycogen stores for the morning race, I had a baked sweet potato with a small amount of clover honey drizzled on top with cinnamon on top of that.  I finally got to bed just before 10:30pm.

Getting to the Start Line
I woke up shortly after 6:00am and got myself a cup of fresh brewed coffee and got myself ready.  I wore my Nike Free Version 3.0 with compression socks, my Nike split shorts, a Under Armor hot gear sleeveless shirt and a running singlet, along with a running hat, thin gloves, and arm sleeves.  Sarah and I got the girls up and dressed and the dog in the car and we were out the door minutes before 7:00am.  We parked in a ramp a couple blocks down from the start line and were able to meet up with my Mom and Dad without and issues.  I was able to get a good 10-15 minute warm up in and was at the start line in time to listen to an 11 year old girl belt out on of the best versions of the National Anthem I've ever heard prior to the start of a race.

Miles 0-5
We started right down College Av heading west.  I jockeyed around a bit to avoid the runners who start out at the front of the pack.  Running a 5 mile race is a different beast for me.  I rarely run 10k's (6.2 miles) and usually run just 5k's and marathons.  Yea - I know, they are like polar opposites, but I enjoy what each of them bring to the table.  A 5k, you just go out balls to the wall and go until you crash.  And that's more or less what my strategy was for this race.  I wanted to go out and get into a groove early.  I'm pretty comfortable with my pacing and usually know where I should be for a given distance.  So, after the first mile I knew I had to back off a tad if I wanted to run steady for the next 4 miles.  By mile 3 I knew I was going a bit too hard.  I continued to push and just hope I wouldn't crash and burn.   I actually even got rather warm throughout the race and had to ditch the gloves and arm sleeves after the 3rd mile.  Continuing on there was a significant hill right about mile 4 which was STEEP!  The only positive thing about that hill was the fact that it was short and you knew that there was just under a mile left.  If you look at my mile splits I slowed a bit, which I honestly expected to do going into this race, my goal was to just not slow too much, which I think I was successful in not doing.
Mile 1: 5:50
Mile 2: 6:05
Mile 3: 6:11
Mile 4: 6:18
Mile 5: 6:31
I finished with an official time of 30:56, a time I am very satisfied with.  I placed 24th overall out of 2447 finishers (top 1%) and placed 4th in my age group (25-29).  Overall a very satisfying race.

Post Race

After the race I had a couple pieces of banana and some water and waited for my dad to cross the finish line.  My Dad crossed in 36:30 and then we hung around until Sarah and the girls, my Mom, and Ben and Mandy finished the 2 mile walk.  One thing that you get after running/walking the Turkey Trot is a Festival Foods pumpkin pie.  One thing we always choose to do is donate the pie to the Salvation Army.  After donating our pies, we really didn't stick around too long as it was windy and we had to get back to get things ready for Thanksgiving.


Other Notes
Really the only thing I can think of is how warm it was today!  Thinking about my outfit, I actually wore considerably less on a Thanksgiving Day race then I did in the Lakefront Marathon on October 7th.  It's just kind of crazy to think about.

Lessons for Future Events
I need to work in 1 or 2 other middle distance races.  I know there is a 10k run in Appleton every summer.  But, quite simply, a 10k is not nearly as popular of a race distance as a 5k, which is understandable when you think about it.  As I said earlier, I completely expected for my mile splits to slow, but I don't like the disparity between mile 1 and mile 5.  A 40 second difference is just too big for my liking.  I need to start incorporating more intermediate distance tempo runs into my training due to the lack of that distance races that I am able to participate in.

What's Next
I have 19 days left of my "off season" before my Ironman training plans actually kicks in.  I have decided to make a goal of running every single day from today until New Years day.  It doesn't have to be anything significant, as short as 1 mile will do.  It's something I read on Runners World, a promotion/pledge they do during the Holidays to promote healthy habits during a traditionally unhealthy time of the year.  I'm not 100% sure what will come of it with my background focusing more on triathlon style training.  But I run quite a bit as it is already and think I will just try to work an extra mile into other days as a warm-up, cool-down, or a way to recover from a long workout the day before.  But as for my immediate future - We are off to our families Thanksgiving Feasts!  So remember to say thanks and take a minute (or two!) to really think about all the many things we have to be thankful for!