This year's Thanksgiving was considerably more pleasant than last year's. Last year, I was sick. My 23:08 four miler last year was the most miserable experience of my life. I also paid for that time with 4 days of misery with a 100+ fever and a throat so sore it hurt to drink water. This year, I got 21:09, 9th place, less misery during the race, and NO sickness afterwards.
My Dad told me to stick with the lead pack for as long as I could. The first half-mile felt easy, actually. I didn't know how fast I was going. Then It started getting harder. I was breathing really, really hard. I thought, "Am I out of shape or something? There's no way I can keep this up for 4 miles!" Then I saw my 4:55 split at the mile, which was probably short. My real mile split was more like 5:00. Short or not. the sight of 4:55 -- only 3 seconds slower than my official mile PR (though my Dad thinks I should be able to run something like 4:40) scared me into slowing down. I leapfrogged from guy to guy until I got behind Gordon King, a 18-year old just out of high school. My two mile split was 10:26, believable. My three mile split was 16:00, but my Dad thikns it was 5 seconds long. With 1200 to go, I started making a move. Gordon responded and passed me. Then I passed him. Every time I tried to gap him, every time I reached a certain intensity, it felt like I could not breath. I felt like my legs were strong and wanted to fo faster, but that I was unable to breath hard enough. I finished in 21:09. Gordon got 21:01. With 500 to go he kicked, and I couldn't respond. I may have had a little mental lapse between 600 to go and 400 to go. But I don't think it cost me more than 2-3 seconds.
I ended up pacing the one mile race, winning time 5:43 -- Josh Blackburn. I was afraid I'd have to run 5:20 or 5:30. Thankfully, my fears were not realized. Our total turkey count was 7. And this is the first year that everybody has gotten an award -- Matthew for youngest participant, and everyone else for place.
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