Turkey Trot

I ran mostly ran a 5k on Thanksgiving morning.  I didn't run it last year, because we were out of town, but I ran it the two years before that, and I never take it too seriously, it's more just for fun.  I ran it with Lindsay, one of my sister's best friends, one of my best friend's sister, and since neither of us had been training too hard, our goal was just to finish it without walking.  

The course was in downtown Lynchburg for the first time, and since over 1300 people ran in the race, it started out slowly.  We just jogged along for a while, chatting and pointing out funny things.  A little after mile 1 we made it to the HUGE hill.  Oh. my. goodness.  It was steep and it was long, and just when I thought I couldn't go any further we made it to the top.  Thank you, Lord!  There was a nice long straight away before we had to turn around and go back, which meant running down that hill.  Now that, I could handle!  But then we got passed by a lady pushing a stroller and running with her dog.  That's a real confidence boost.  But we kept running along, gearing up for one last hill.  It was hard but we made it to the top, and then I just wanted to collapse.  I kept running.  Slowly, mind you, and then I just had to walk for a bit.  I started running again when I saw my mom on the sidewalk taking pictures, and I finished out running.  My final time was 35:35, which is my slowest 5k time, and a little disappointing, but that course was killer.  But we did talk with several experienced runners, and they all commented on how hard those hills were, and at one point we came to a standstill because things got bottle necked at the foot bridge, so considering those things, I don't feel quite as bad about the time.  And hey, I got up early and ran on Thanksgiving day!

I actually spotted Dad, which wasn't too hard with my green polka dotted camera strap :)

There we go, up those awful hills!

Almost done!