Turkey Trot 2008

Well, I did it . . . sort of.

Traffic was real bad getting onto Camp Bowie in Ft. Worth. Once we parked we wadded through the crowds to get our chips. This chip is tied to your shoe laces & is how they know what your race time is. Jeremy went to get mine while I stood in a long line for the dreaded porta-potty. Ugh!

He comes back to tell me that they lost my chip! Apparently they gave it to someone other than #848. So I had to ask for a new number. Then I became #3570. Then I had to stand in line for a new chip.

During this line-standing, the race started. But we weren't worried because we were chip-timed. Basically what it does is it starts your time once you cross the starting line & ends your time when you cross the finish line. It's more accurate this way because not every runner can cross the starting line at the exact same time.

So we got to the starting line but it was missing something. It was missing the mats that are there to start your chip time. So we thought the start was a little further down & we kept walking. But eventually we figured out that it had started & we were ruining our time by walking. Apparently they decided to start everyone's time at the same time, which isn't accurate.

Did I mention there were 10,000 participants at this thing? And I think most were doing the 5k! But most were walking. There were big groups of families with their dogs & strollers. Now, I'm all for family walking time, don't get me wrong. Good for them to burn some calories together before eating loads of food. But as a runner trying to do well in her first official race, let's say I was a little annoyed by the crowds.

The route went through neighborhoods that just weren't wide enough for so many people. And when you came up to a wall of walkers you had 2 options. You either start walking or you run up into a yard. I chose the yards. It's not easy running in grass. And weaving in & out of yards & crowds took a lot more energy than I normally use. Sometimes I'd come up to someone & just wanted to growl at them to make them move.

But I didn't.

It was just frustrating. I was having a hard time catching my breath & would have to run slower. But I never walked.

It felt so good to see the finish line. And hearing people clapping & cheering, even when you know it's not necessarily just for you, really helps push you to finish.

My finish time says it was 50 minutes-something. I didn't focus on it because I knew it was wrong. I don't run that slow. I normally run under 42 minutes. So no official time for me still.

Unfortunately the above picture is the best I have & that was before the race. Even though we had a couple supports there, there was no way they could get a picture of me crossing the finish line with such a huge crowd around there.

So I will just have to find myself a smaller, more local race to get my official time. But at least I burned about 280 calories to put towards all the food I later ate!