2011 Turkey Trot

My long-time readers might remember that my family ran in a Turkey Trot last year while on Thanksgiving vacation to Branson, Missouri. It was our first ever and was 5k. You can read about it here if you don’t have anything better to do if you want.

I’m pretty certain I have mentioned that a few short months ago I got the brilliant idea to make it a family tradition and run a 5K again. Mom said yes. I looked and found the Columbus (Ohio) Turkey Trot. Mom was the one who caught that it was not a 5K. Good thing we knew that before the race.

I saw this status on Facebook. Mom: We need to decide soon. It’s only two months from now. Kimmi: Wait, two months? Mom: Today’s the 24th and Thanksgiving is the 24th. Kimmi: Don’t we have two weeks to think about preparing?

So Mom and I trained for a 5 miler. Dad and Kimmi thought about it. Josh never did. Jared and Lindey agreed to the walk & talk 2 miler. I hurt my leg and had to take it easy for a few weeks so my longest run prior to the Turkey Trot was only 2.88 miles and that was only the Saturday before.

Thanksgiving came and we arrived at the Turkey Trot. Next year: get there just a little bit earlier. Registration was a pill. They had four different lines but were expecting more than 5000 participants. Numbers 1-1000 went to same day registrants. 1001-2999 had two lines. 3000+ had one line. It was one very long line. People were in the registration line still when the race was supposed to start. Including me (and my family). The race started. And we were still in line. And THEN my number didn’t exist or was given to someone else. So they had to get me another number. And they ran out of shirts but gave out vouchers so we can still get them.

Someone said “hurry up, you probably won’t be timed anymore but soon they’ll start the 2 mile walk”. We started running. We let the walkers ... walk.

Mom was ahead of us. Dad was behind us. Josh, Kimmi, and I stayed together the majority of the time. We ran. We walked. We sprinted. We didn’t die. We might have almost died. But we didn’t. We talked. We had fun. We talked with other people. Dad passed us. Dad passed Mom. Dad went out of sight. We caught up to Mom. Passed Mom. Mom passed us. Repeat. And then Mom was just ahead of us.

When we were between miles 1 and 2, we saw people already on their last mile. Disgusting people.

When we reached mile 4, Josh ran ahead. Josh passed Mom. Josh went out of sight.

Kimmi and I finished. That’s about all we can say about that. Mom finished far enough ahead of us that she was ready to take a picture of us finishing. Yeah. It helps that we weren’t thinking of this in terms of “run the whole thing” but rather “don’t fail”.

The only report I got from Jared and Lindey was “It was fun.” And “Kaelyn was distraught once we got in the van.”

I just now decided to look up if we got timed after all. Check it out. The “place” is according to time, not when you actually crossed the finish line.

Dad finished 3680th – total time 59:05 – pace 11:49

Joshua finished 3870th – total time 1:03:16 – pace 12:40

I finished 3983th – total time 1:07:47 – pace 13:34

Kimmi finished 3984th – total time 1:07:50 – pace 13:34

Mom finished 3997th – total time 1:08:27 – pace 13:42

Jared finished 680th – total time 41:11 – walking

Lindey finished 681th – total time 41:12 – walking

We hope to do more races throughout the year instead of just on Thanksgiving. We’ll definitely be “racing” next Thanksgiving though!

And I still hope to beat my dad. I think it is totally do able.