There isn’t really much point in writing a race report for a race that wasn’t actually raced, is there? To be fair, I didn’t race this last year either, but that was because I didn’t want to, not because I couldn’t. It is truly mystifying that I keep registering for races when I can’t run them properly, but here we are.
I didn’t bother to set an alarm, because really, would it be so terrible if I missed an opportunity to put on a shit show? Truly a pity, too, since the weather was great for running.
With this race, I generally try to start very close to the front so as to avoid the people who are taking the “trot” in “Turkey Trot” literally. But since this year, there were two waves, I assumed most of those trotters would be in the second, and I have no business being near the front of anything right now, so I started farther back than I would have in years past.
This, as it turns out, was a mistake. Because even in my current can’t-run-fast state, I wound up getting stuck behind people.
Of course, I had no intention of looking at my watch, since its feedback is useless to me when I can’t respond in any way. But I was wearing a heat sheet wrapped around myself at the start, and then I had to carry it until we reached a dumpster near the end of Center Drive. This was about half a mile into the race, maybe a little less; and when I turned my wrist to toss the heat sheet, I caught a glimpse of my watch, which told me my average pace thus far was 4:xx per mile. So it’s a good thing I hadn’t been planning on relying on that, I guess.
As expected, because of that wonky half mile, even though I do think the GPS sorted itself out after that, overall it was measuring long. I fully expected this to be one of my slowest PPTC Turkey Trots ever, maybe even the slowest — and I don’t think I’ve ever run over an 8:00 pace in all the years I’ve been doing this, so that’s an indication of just how shitty I feel these days. But I did try to rationalize that by telling myself that if I could run a marathon at sub-8 pace while feeling this way, I could manage it for five measly miles.
I just tried not to have everyone pass me like I was standing still. Which was a successful endeavor, I guess. Someone alongside whom I ran much of the race told me afterwards that I looked so smooth and relaxed, like it was easy for me. Well, yeah. I can’t run any other way right now. I would love to run a race deep into the pain cave, but since that will achieve nothing but make me hurt without a commensurate result, that would be dumb.
Garmin recorded 5.1 miles in 35:07, 6:53/mi. Obviously these splits are not at all accurate, particularly because Zoo Hill is in the third mile, and I would put money on the fact that that was actually my slowest. But I suppose it’s irrelevant.
Also, too bad I didn’t look at my watch at the final mile marker, because officially, I ran five miles in 35:05, 7:01/mi. 117/2382 OA, 22/1182 F, and 7/184 F35-39. I say that because a few measly seconds would have put me under 7:00/mi, but would I have been able to run that final mile six seconds faster? These days? Probably not.
This was my ninth time running this race. And my slowest since 2018, which I ran in 35:08. 2018, coincidentally, was a micro version of this year, in that I was inexplicably running like shit. I didn’t feel bad, I just couldn’t run well. And it didn’t last nearly as long as this current downward slide.
I have an appointment with the sports medicine doctor next week. Let’s see if that will enlighten me. I suspect it won’t.
Running Break 