Thanksgiving Day: Raced My First Open 10km Run Race!

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family and a delicious homemade dinner! I was lucky enough to fly home where I was welcomed by my immediate family along with both grandparents and my wonderful Aunt who had a large role in launching my triathlon career. It was quite a treat!

So now for the juicy stuff, a race report on my first open 10km run race at the local Dana Point Turkey Trot! While I have raced many 10km runs, they have always been at the end of triathlons. Even as a strong runner, I never had the pleasure of running amongst great runners in a 10km run solely. And that's just what I got at Dana Point's Turkey Trot...great runners! With purse prizes of $1k, $500, and $250 for the top 3 male and female athletes, it was a given that some legit athletes would show their faces. Not to mention this race harbors over 10,000 runners, 4,000 of them planning on shedding some calories in the 10km run prior to a Thanksgiving feast. Amazing!

I decided to sign up for the race just a week ago after healing from a bad fall off my bike 2 weekends prior while maneuvering down a wet descent in the Berkeley hills. While my bike was lucky, I wasn't as fortunate. I took a nice slide across the asphalt and gravel that led to a bruised hip, knee, and ankle in additions to wounds on my shoulder, ankle, and both hips. This led to some stiffness in my running stride for a week as my bruised hip made was aggravated by the muscles flexing around it. So basically I am all healed up and I decided that I'd like to use a great Turkey Trot like the one in Dana Point to test where my fitness level was at in the fall base period when I have simply been running on hilly trails and kept off the track for speed. I was all set for a great test!

And that's just what I did! I woke up at 5AM, showered, inhaled some oats, and was off to cruise down the beautiful Newport Coast towards Dana Point. Just as I was getting into town, the view of the ocean horizon was revealing a red glow that looked stunning along the protruding coastline. I parked, got my bib, and did my warmup as I prepared myself for some quality competition. The winner from the previous year had posted a smoking fast 29:28 10km...yea, FAST! And I thought my 32:30 at the end of a triathlon was quick, I guess not.

We all lined up behind the start line, all 3,978 of us. I snuck up into the elite starting area..shhh, don't tell! "BANG!" said the starting gun. And we were off. I was about 4 rows of runners back from the top elites at the starting area, so I worked my way around as we headed down a flat straight shoot. After just 400 meters, I had to make the decision of whether I would be able to catch the top 12 runners and risk blowing up or run my race and hope that I'd catch at some point. So I chose the latter and used the top runners as a carrot that I didn't want to get any further away. I was sort of in no man's land except for 1 other runner who was drafting off me for a while. At the mile marker I mentioned the idea of working together to catch the front pack with my follower. He was tentative at first and said he might not be very helpful, but he warmed up to the idea and we were soon taking off turns with the slight wind and mental effort of pushing the pace. As we were running through the 2 mile marker after turning around and heading back the way we came, we were met by masses of runners. They were ridiculous, taking up the entire lane and I almost had some close head on collisions.

We stayed safe luckily! And made it through the halfway point, 5km in 15:54. The two of us stayed together while I did most of the work, but finally he took over and pushed a blazing pace for the next 2 miles where we caught 2 of the top runners who were fading. We kept pushing forward and saw the splintered front pack, still moving fast, but not intact. With the 5 mile marker upon us, I took over pulling and started to push the pace in order to gradually work my way up to a sprint for the final 400 meters. We passed 1 other runner and we had our sights set on the Finish line. As I got into a full sprint for me, or rather a long strided run, I heard the loudspeaker addresses the racers, "Are you more focused on that big Thanksgiving Turkey for dinner or the Finish Line?" My mental answer, "FINISH LINE!!!!" And I picked it up to a sprint as I kept anyone from outsprinting me and came across the line in a personal best time of 31:45!! That's 5:07 per mile pace if you were about to grab your calculator.

I was very happy with my time since my previous best was at the end of a triathlon in what I thought was quick, 32:30. I congratulated my fellow athletes, drank a recovery drink, said hello to my family, and went off on a cool down. It was a great start to a great Thanksgiving. Later on that day I decided to go for a nice open water swim in the ocean and was amazed by the crystal clear view of the ocean bottom 50 feet below. Light was bouncing off of Kelp below live a techno rave light show. Spectacular! Oh, and then I pretty much ate half a Turkey.

Hope the holiday was good to you all!