Fifth Third Turkey Trot – 10k!

I’m done, and home, and fed!

Even though all the predictions were for apocalyptic amounts of rain, the rain finished falling before I even set foot out of Cobo Hall to head to the start line, so I ran my whole race without a drop falling.

There’s the Renaissance Center near race start time. Fog was heavy and it was cold and dark, but no rain. At this point, I figured it was just a matter of time before it started pouring.

I felt really good. The Detroit Turkey Trot had an estimated 20,000 runners, and the congestion around the start line and running up Woodward was epic. My first two miles took 26 minutes, and I was sure that I wasn’t going to average fast enough to do it. So, taking the good advice of all of you folks here, I just relaxed and enjoyed the run. I gave high fives to volunteers, I cheered on people dressed as turkeys, I yelled Happy Thanksgiving to the police officers manning the road closure points.

Among the many things that beat me across the finish line, was this massive picnic basket being pushed by 4 runners.

To be fair, I don’t know how much of a head start it had, but still, I got beat by a fruit basket (and it ran the 10k!). Not to mention this guy here ‘riding’ a turkey. These are apparently the kind of crazy things that go through your head after the *first* crazy thought of “hey, what if I got up on Thanksgiving morning and just ran 3-6 miles with 20,000 other people in downtown Detroit”. I saw multiple Santa Clauses, a group of 3 people dressed as a (fully loaded) Thanksgiving table, and an indeterminate number of people linked together under a Chinese New Year Dragon.

But all these fun distractions, and great weather, and the road opening up a *lot* after the 5k run/walk crowd split off and it was just me and the other 10k runners going up and down Michigan Avenue. My first two miles took 26 minutes… the next 2 took only 24:30, and my last 2.2 miles were 26 minutes total; meaning while my first two miles were 13 min/mile, and my next two were 12:15min/mile; my final push was 11:45 min/mile!

And my official time has been posted; 1:16:13. Two minutes faster than my ‘goal’ pace.

I couldn’t have done this without the support of the Village of Trainers. All the encouragement, positive words, advice on my runs have made all the difference in keeping myself on track and running more and more each week. All of you that I’ve already talked to today are all jockeying for my next race to be in your neck of the woods. I’m lucky to have such great and supportive friends.

76:13 folks! I’ve been carrying around this reminder (that orange thing is my wallet) of my commitment to run this race, and to do it right. With a 1:16:13 finish, a 12:15 pace, that means I was faster not only than I committed to be, but that I ran 10k faster than I ran my 5k x 2!

Thanks again. This isn’t over!