Keith was feeling good after his half-marathon and decided he would do the R3 Turkey Trot in Clarksville on Saturday. He had been trying to talk me into doing it with him. There was a 5-mile and a 10-mile route. I was having none of it. I wanted to concentrate my efforts on the second race of the Cross the Way Series that was to be held on Sunday in Murfreesboro. I thought about the Turkey Trot the whole time I was running on Wednesday. My sister joined me for the last 4 miles. The pace I chose early was slower than I'm used to, but boy did it make me feel better later. I ended up leaving Dina and finishing a few minutes ahead of her. I felt so good that I ran back out to meet her. My total for the day was 7 miles, my farthest run ever by 2 miles. I was hurting a little at the end, but not too bad. I kept thinking about the Trot and finally decided that doing the 5-mile race wouldn't kill me. I'm already preparing for next year anyway, so I could use the extra training.
Friday evening, Kaylee and I scouted the run course on our bikes right before dark. The course was just a few miles from where I work. We squeezed in a nice recovery ride and a preview of the next day's pain. The course was out-and-back and pretty flat. Saturday morning, it was rise and shine early and off to Clarksville for the run. I met Kaylee, Keith, Boobie Rick, Andrew Leonard, and Keith's neighbor Eric there. We had a fair amount of mountain biker representation! Boobie Rick had an interesting story. He doesn't run and just up and decided to do this. When asked about breaking in the running shoes he bought a few days before the race, he replied, "I ran 3 or 4 minutes on the treadmill when the girl at the running store checked my gait. I think I'm good." He has more balls than me. There's no way I'd jump off a bar stool and go run 5 miles!
The running crew before the start
The gun sounded and Keith went off like a mad man, weaving in and out of the people as we tried to get to the front. It was all I could do to follow him through everybody. We started faster than planned. I had to let Keith go about a mile in just to keep from blowing up. Neither of us did any sort of warm-up. I caught back up to him after a while and we stayed together on the way out, rounding the turnaround at just under 19 minutes. My goal was to go sub-40 minutes for the whole thing.
And we're off!
Eric caught us on the way back. He came chugging on by, forcing Keith and I to pick up the pace. I was planning to kick it up with 1.5 miles to go. With Eric leading, I was already at my top speed well before that point. Eric was still picking up steam as we started the last half mile. We ended with a sprint as we could see the clock approaching 37 minutes. I crossed the line at 36:58, with Eric just one second back. Keith came through 12 seconds later with a time of 37:10. Andrew and Rick came in at 47:28, a great time for two people who never run. Great job guys! Kaylee completed her longest run to date in 1:11:00. She ran the whole thing without walking. Her training is already paying off!
Kaylee finishes
Boobie Rick and Andrew weren't even tired by this running stuff
Kaylee and I post-race
There were a good 20 runners ahead of us so I never dreamed of being in the medals. They started calling out the results of the older classes first. The top times from the 30 and 40-year old classes were much faster than I ran, so I wasn't really even paying attention when it came to my class. Then I heard my name called. Turns out I took 3rd in the 20-24 class. Talk about a shocker!
After the awards, I hopped on the bike for a flat 25 mile spin to loosen up the legs. After that, it was home to build a new burm on the trail before heading to Keith's house to throw a surprise birthday party for Misty. She was surprised and thrilled to see us all hiding in her house when she came home. I'm sure the decorating job scared her. Give a bunch of dudes (a bunch of dirty mountain bikers) several rolls of crate paper and you will get something that looks great in the dark. Just don't turn on the lights! Thankfully, Kaylee was there to give us some sort of direction. It turned out to be presentable despite Rick hanging frazzled streamers off the ceiling fan. We all ate way too much of Keith's awesome burgers and enjoyed the cake that featured a burning sparkler after we ran out of candles.
Thanks Keith and Misty for the pics I used here. We are all going to get back together for the Jingle Bell Jog 5K on December 4 in downtown Clarksville. Info is available here if you want to join us.
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