Tampa Bay Times Turkey Trot race report.
Time: 21:07.7
Splits: 6:43, 6:51, 7.07, 0.08@5:45
After having no race last year, did not want to miss this year. No 10K this year and the pre-race party was moved as well as the finish line and there was a slight change to the course. Plan was to go out hard running through the mayhem of the first mile with thousands of people many of whom are not lined up to their ability but it's part of the fun. Got a pretty decent warmup with just under a mile including some strides (was having some trouble getting the legs to turn over as fast as I wanted but better to get that out of the way before the race than during the race).
Race starts and things go pretty much as expected, with the crowd a little less crazy after about a 1/4 mile. I'm hanging on ok and locked into a 6:40ish pace. Bill Cottrell goes cruising by me and wishes me a happy Thanksgiving. We turn the corner at the end of the first straightaway and soon hit the mile sign. 6:41. One goal down, get back under 7:00 for the first mile. Can I do one more? Continue on until taking the left hand turn that will lead to the hill. I'm struggling but moving along and seemingly the same pace, slipped maybe a little to about 6:46, feeling pretty locked in. See the two mile sign and a little after that the watch beeps, 6:51. Hmmm, that's odd pace had seemed pretty steady.
The third mile is where the change is. Instead of a straight shot up the same road, we take a left down a side street, a right, another right and finally a left to get back to the street where we left the old course. Then, turning left onto Druid you could see the finish line. Traditionally, you'd turn just past this year's finish line and head onto the high school track where the finish line was which is kind of nice, but this year's straight shot down the road made it slightly easier. Also, that little detour down the side streets broke up Cemetery Hill into two parts.
Pace seemed to be holding at about 6:54 for the last mile. Somewhere back maybe around mile 2.5 I'd passed up Bill. Not wanting to get passed again I sped up as best I could, past the 3 mile sign and did the best kick I could. As I went by the 3 mile sign, watch beeped and showed 7:07 for the split, strange again.
Managed to not get passed by anyone and after going through the chute saw the person with the coffee mug cards still had some left, I'd made it under runner 125.
I soon realized what had been going on with the splits. At some point, my watch display switched to average pace, which explained the mismatch between what I thought I was running and the actual splits. The plus side of this mishap I think is it kept me from getting discouraged in the third mile where I'd probably slowed down running up the hill and zig zagging through the neighborhood.
Found Tom and saw he had a coffee mug card (not much of question of whether he'd get one). 6th place for him this year with a time of 16:20.
Rest of the day was nice. Due to people's schedules, our main meal would be breakfast - Jessica was taking Aubrey to cheer competition in Orlando. Later in the evening, had dinner with Sophia and her friend and then went up to see my parents and brought them dessert. Andy brought Stella to Jenny's house for dinner. She got to play with NiKYO as well as having a big bowl of dinner leftovers.
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