Prospect Park Track Club 5M Turkey Trot 2019

I’ve run this race every year since 2012 (though I missed 2015 due to a calcaneal stress fracture), and every year has yielded a PR… except for 2018.

2012: 39:45
2013: 38:03
2014: 37:52
2015: DNS
2016: 34:55
2017: 34:46
2018: 35:08

I tried to correct that failure to get a PR last year by running the QDR Toy Drive 5 Miler in December, and I did run 33:56, but the course was short, so it didn’t count. Finally, I had the chance to fix this.

Originally, I wanted to run 33:33, because I like the way it looks. But then I decided I may as well be aggressive and try for 32:30, because why not? If I completely fell apart, it shouldn’t matter too much: my PR was so soft, it was slower than HM pace. I could afford to mess up and still be able to salvage something out of it.

But three things happened.

Fourth windy race in a row! Oh joy. I’m getting really tired of this.

The digestive woes that plagued me at the Long Beach Turkey Trot 10K a few days ago are still around. It was bad enough that I actually did go see the doctor about it, which resulted in a referral, which will ultimately lead to the conclusion that you’ll just have to learn to live with it. I know that because I already went through this cycle in 2014.

And the third thing… the heel that I fractured back in 2015 was bugging me. This happens sometimes, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. In fact, it happened before the C&D Canal Half Marathon, which is why I ended up wearing these shoes again.

I really wanted to wear a pair of 1400s, because I find it easier to run fast in them, but the Rebels are so much more cushioned in the heel that they feel better when my foot is being like this. Of course, it wouldn’t make a difference whether I wore a cushioned shoe if it was re-fractured, but I was clearly operating on the hope and assumption that it wasn’t.

And then I took off the tights I was wearing over my shorts. This is the first time I have ever run this Turkey Trot in shorts, and I was freezing my ass off before the start, but I’m glad I wasn’t wearing tights because that would have been way too hot and made the race even more uncomfortable.

Yeah, so, that weather widget? It’s wrong. If it’s a matter of debate whether the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be able to have their balloons flying due to high winds? It is ****ing windy! I took comfort in the fact that it was supposed to be a westerly wind since that’s the kindest possible direction for this course, but apparently that was wrong too, because it seemed more northerly. When we were running north. And a bit southerly when we were running south. You get the idea.

The horn sounded, off we went, and I could tell pretty much immediately that this race wasn’t going to go the way I wanted it to. I just never felt good. It wasn’t even my stomach, necessarily (oddly, that seems a lot more problematic when I’m running a cool down, which makes it look like running easy is worse) … it wasn’t that my legs hurt or wouldn’t turn over faster, because my cadence was still high. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t seem to move as fast as I wanted to. And this is very obvious, given that my average heart rate was 148. That is not a racing heart rate for me.

Linda took this photo a bit before the two-mile mark. I knew the hill was coming, and I knew that would slow me down some, and even though I’d be able to recoup a bit of that time later, it was pretty much a guarantee that I was not going to hit my A goal. I decided that there was no need to kill myself to get a tiny bit closer to it than I would otherwise — I should still be able to PR very easily.

So Oren passed me, and I didn’t even try to catch him. Which is something I totally would have done, had I not been feeling so off.

Photo by Alan Lawn

About two miles to go — I had just run the third mile at marathon pace, and I was not amused or impressed. My GPS looked like it was screwing up, too, which just added to my aggravation.

To further the whole I have no idea what was going on in this race thing, I managed to run the last two miles at close to my original goal pace, but I didn’t feel like I was working much harder than I already had been. I can’t figure any of this out.

When I finally saw the finish line clock, I realized I’d be able to finish in under 34:00 if I floored it, so I did. Too bad it wasn’t to finish in under 33:00, which is what I really wanted, but you can’t always get what you want when you want it.

The GPS overage kind of corrected itself — my watch had been measuring as much as a tenth of a mile ahead at a couple of the mile markers. So at least there’s that.

Garmin recorded 5.02 miles in 33:57, 6:46/mi. Which is a slower pace than the 10K I ran a few days ago, so, you know, that feels great.

Officially, 5 miles in 33:56, 6:47/mi. 91/2351 OA, 12/1318 F, and 1/233 F35-39. I fell short of my goal of placing in the top ten females, but that’s not something you really have any control over, so I’m not too upset about that. I’m not upset with my time either, exactly … sure, my PR was so soft that I should have been able to beat it with my eyes closed, but I am very well aware that this does not mean that is what will necessarily happen. So I’m glad that I did get the PR. I just wish it hadn’t felt so awful.

My heel seems to have come through okay, and I am beyond super thankful about that. But something just doesn’t feel right to me, and I don’t know why or what it is or how to fix it.

Maybe it’s because I had to go to a wedding on Tuesday night and am still so sleep-deprived from it that I can’t even think straight. Sure, I’ll blame it on that, why not?