Turkey Trot 5-Miler

Shut your mouth: A friend's son, D, at the table, awaiting the rest of the Thanksgiving dishes.

My SO and I ran the 29th Annual Alexandria Turkey Trot 5-miler yesterday morning, in between baking two kinds of (oyster and vegetarian) stuffing and prepping our petite and rather elegant bird. There's a nice photo of the start of the race on the Metro front of today's Washington Post.

Two more friends were supposed to run with us, but they backed out once forecasters talked of a cold front and rainstorm coming in. Wimps :-). A huge crowd of close to 2,000 runners, along with Virginia Gov. Mark Warner - whose bib was #1 - and a man dressed as a turkey gathered at a local elementary school shortly before 10 a.m. for the race. A light rain was falling, and the temperature started to drop, but we surged forward nonetheless.

This was a casual 5-mile race. No starting gun went off; I think someone just yelled, "Go!" We didn't have chips either - the tiny electronic devices that record your time - tied to our shoelaces, and no splits or mile-markers told runners how far and how fast we were running. Which was fine.

People gathered on the corners and sidewalks with their dogs, umbrellas and coffee to cheer us on. Kids and families walked out of their houses or stood on their porches and clapped. Some women came out with aprons tied around their waists and whistled. A bunch of guys even did the wave for us.

It started raining harder, and by mile 3, I was soaked. But as long as I kept running, I stayed warm. Talk about incentive.

We saw two naked runners. Well, naked except for loincloths, feathers in their hair and warpaint on their faces. They looked cold but they sure were enthusiastic. We passed them. My SO and I ran together the whole way, somewhat remarkable given that he's 6' 3" and I'm 5' 2". I don't think I slowed him down too much; at mile 4, we both started running faster and passing more people, crossing the finish line at a nice clip.

Our time according to the official clock: 43:00 minutes, or 8:36 a mile. However, we probably ran a bit faster as we had to shuffle for a good half-mile at the beginning before the crowd started thinning out.

All right, folks. I know I have a photo of our Thanksgiving meal posted above, but I'm going to have to write about that later. Gotta go eat breakfast: mmm, turkey and stuffing and scrambled eggs.