Remind me never to race a 5k again

My Atalaya Turkey Trot 5k experience in abbreviated form:

• 0600: wake up
• 0700: final turkey prep
• 0815: leave for race
• 0830: freezing warm up
• 0900: race start
• 0906: OMG
• 0912: OMFG
• 0919: OMFG I'm going to die
• 0921: deliverance
• 0925: freezing cool down
• 1045: mmm pie

The long(er) version:

Thanksgiving morning I ran the third annual Atalaya Turkey Trot 5k. I decided to participate in this event partly because it was a fund raiser for what will be my son's elementary school in a couple years and partly because I figured it would be a good workout. So after a morning of Thanksgiving preps I headed over to the start area, picked up my packet, got my stuff in order, and began my warm-up.

Note to self #1: the whole notion of "warming up" is kind of absurd when the outside temperature is hovering around 20 degrees, the wind is howling, and the ground is covered in snow.

The course was a loop through some East Side neighborhoods of Santa Fe. Downhill for the first mile, a big roller in the middle, and uphill for the last third.



My intent was to go somewhat easy and run this at a moderate aerobic effort. I was here to have fun and support a good cause, not dive into a black hole of pain. The mere fact that I'm explaining this means you can probably guess what happened: as soon as the race started all that BS went out the window and my stupidly self-competitive self took over.

Just starting out

Note to self #2: throwing out your race strategy at mile zero is not a good race strategy.

The first mile was basically all downhill, and it quickly became painful but tolerable. Meaning, it hurt, but I was not (yet) feeling overwhelmed. I just tried to keep the legs turning quickly since I knew my lungs could keep up (I never saw any mile markers, so no splits).

Mile #2 was mentally the toughest: far enough in to be fully immersed in the painful morass of lactic acid, yet too early for the nearness of the finish to drive me home. The big roller made for some welcomed changes of pace. As I passed by the water station I heard one volunteer say to another, "hey that cone is supposed to be over there" followed by "HEY YOU MISSED THE TURN". But I only lost 15 seconds maybe. 

By mile #3 everything was screaming: quads, hamstrings, calves, feet, ass, hips, you name it, it hurt (OK, maybe *that* didn't hurt, but that's probably because it was numb from the cold). The only thing keeping me going was the footsteps I kept hearing behind me as we crunched along the dirt road and dumped out onto the final stretch of pavement.... because, like, you know, getting passed in the last half km of a Turkey Trot would signal the beginning of my demise as a runner.

Note to self #3: stupidly competitive athletes make themselves suffer a lot for stupid reasons.

During the final climb up to the finish I just tried to concentrate on my form and cadence. Surprisingly I increased my lead on the people behind me, so after a quick glance back I was able to ease up a bit as I turned into the school for the finish. I crossed the line right around 20:50. Somehow I managed 4th overall and 2nd in my age group, which I would take as prima facie evidence that only three fast runners showed up.

Nearing the finish line

Note to self #4: racing, as opposed to just running, a 5k is freakin' hard! As I mentioned to Max after the race (check out his photos), this was my first 5k, and I probably wouldn't mind if it were my last for a while.

I did manage to bring home a pumpkin pie for my efforts, but more importantly, I got in a good enough workout to eliminate any guilt I might have had over consuming upwards of 5000 calories later in the day... which was really my main metric of success so all in all it was a good morning.