Unfamiliar Territory - Turkey Trot Race Report

So excited for a few people this past week…last Saturday competed in the Grant Park Turkey Trot, a 5K race of about 6oo people.  I signed up months ago thinking the race wouldn’t cause much anxiety & recruited a decent-sized group or friends who joined in the race as well.  Most of the group have run a 5K at least once before.  Gina Ciaccia, one of my (and many others) favorite people, had never really run before.  Gina & I sat down together and planned out a six-week plan prior to the race.  That first day she was concerned about being able to run longer than 3 minutes without stopping.  After 4 weeks, she was running a full 3+ miles without walking and gaining more confidence that she would be able to complete the race.  Come race day she was all smiles as she achieved every single goal she set for herself. 

Some of my friends ran just to run, some ran for new PRs, and everyone had a great time.  Was a very well-organized event, especially considering it was an inaugural race.  The day was cold and windy but they had hot apple cider for racers and spectators alike. 

As I mentioned, the race was intended to be low-stress, and in comparison to any triathlon I’ve competed in, it really was.  My primary strategy was to go out hard, get a rhythm, and finish hard (each segment seemed like seconds in my head and seconds during the race itself).  My girlfriend Melissa reminded me that my last 2 races were more along the lines of 3 hours and 10 hours.  It seemed in high school, running these races involved so much more strategy, more places for things to go wrong which gave more places to make a move.  Here it seemed I had to simply go out hard and hang on.  This was not familiar territory anymore.  Not entirely sure of what to expect I thought there would be a couple college kids home for Thanksgiving or high school kids fresh off a cross country season who would push the pace.

As the gun went off, there was a quick funnel into a narrow space and I found 3 others in front of me, 2 who were gone before I could latch on and one who I would pass about 2 minutes in.  From there on out, I found myself alone – clinging to a much faster pace than I am normally accustomed to.  I didn’t get my first check until 2 miles in (10:30).  This was a little faster than I anticipated and now I just had one mile to go so.  My body felt fine but my breathing was much too quick.  I had to settle in a little and focus on my form.  Normally at any other race when I have to think about maintaining form my body is so tired I don’t usually get much of a response—here, I could feel that the better my form, the faster my pace.  I tried to hold that against a fairly strong head wind for most of the last mile and thought about my friends who stepped up to run this race so I could dig a little deeper.  I came around the corner of the Lake Shore Drive bike path and sprinted to a 16:23 finish in 3^rd place.  This was about 20 seconds faster than I expected and was even happier that it was just 8 seconds slower than my PR which came about 13 years ago! 

After the finish I went back to cheer on my friends and say that 2 others also came in under their goal time!  Everyone had a great day.  Special congrats to Chris Boisselle and Dr. Plonka who met new PRs; Gina Ciaccia for her first 5K; Emily France, Marianne Kwiatkowski, & Charlie Player for helping Gina to the finish…it was awesome to see you guys come through.  I’ll post pics above when I get my camera back.

Official race results are here:
http://itsracetime.com/Results.aspx?ID=330

Special thanks to Melissa, who’s always there for me.  I know she enjoyed the shorter race as it was only about 2 minutes time that she didn’t see runners.  Also thanks to Dr. Scheunemann, Dr. Ciaccia, Dr. Player, and Dr. Chua for your mad OMT skills in helping me stretch and reset my legs and spine.  Anytime you need a practice pig, I’d be happy to lend my body. 

Final thanks to Isabel Lopez, Melissa’s niece who celebrated her 1^st birthday on race day, for finally getting over her stranger anxiety and allowing me to play with her.