8:00 AM - First time in 9 years I did not elect to run the Troy Turkey Trot. Decided this because the Troy race is just too big, no fun, no guaranteed race tshirts, and just not worth the money and the headache. Drove Emmy and Lizzy to where I usually parked when I worked at Borders. Brought back memories. Borders is still vacant and the parking lot now costs 2.00 an hour to park in it. Briefly thought about parking in my normal spot hehe. Not worth the money nor the ticket though. Met Suzy here. She was going to watch Lizzy for us. We picked up our bibs and were surprised to get not only tshirts IN THE CORRECT SIZE, but cool orange running hats to boot! All this for 20 bucks a pop. I thought this was a small race in years past, but this year had nearly 3000 people running. We followed orders to line up in the 20-25 minute range. Saw a lot of "big" people in front of us and I was like "What gives". Would find out not everyone followed directions. Still had snow banks in Saratoga. We had a huge snowfall in October in Mass, (22" on 10.29.11) which was really weird, but here in NY they had a modest 3-6 inch snowfall two days before Turkey Day. This stunk because it meant that we couldn't pass on the sidewalks. As the race finally went off, about 8 minutes late, I was a bit cold. We eased into a jog, but quickly had to walk because of all the people in blue jeans and jackets walking in front of us. Annoyed the hell out of me. About .5 miles up Broadway, they had us cross the finish line, which was a chute and congested us back to a walk. Didn't hit the one mile until near 9:00 on the dot. Then started to pick it up with Emm. Made it a game. About 1.5 miles in there was a nice downhill and all of our hill running paid off. We sprinted down it and passed about 40 people. It was essentially running the First Night course around Skidmore College. Ran the last mile sub 8:00. Trying to keep good form and holding tight. passed one of my former 8th graders from Galway when I student taught. Hehe. That felt good. Final finishing time was 24:56, but clock time was 25:30. 8:01 pace for the 5k. Cooled down to Borders and waited for Suzy. | 
