Turkey Trots (with Iron and without)

Last weekend marked the start of the holiday series of races with the Ann Arbor Turkey Trot.

Three distances were offered: 10K, 5K, and for kids, the 1mile. If you wanted a cool “Iron Turkey” t-shirt, you could run both, back to back. Well, I wanted the t-shirt, so that’s what I did, while Dharmaspoon Gal entered the 5K.

Dharmaspoon Gal was a little sore going into the 5K and unfortunately ended up with a nasty case of shin splints in the days after the race. Given the choice to pull from the race or go all out, without fear, she went, and gave it her all. And now she’s giving her all to recovery, and will be back before you know it.

As of race day, I was in the middle of reading a fascinating book, “Born to Run.” The book connects our love of running as a species to it’s primal and evolutionary roots via a mix of science, anecdote, and the spellbinding tale of an almost mythical group of distance running villagers in the Copper Canyon of Mexico, and a race between a group of them and a rag-tag collection of “gringo” challengers.

Within the book, a number of observations are made about the both the joy and the lightness with with these villagers run. And also their perfect form, running only on their forefeet, as humans were actually designed to do.

With the book in mind, I decided to spend the race(s) focusing on running light, and with joy. I also made an effort to watch the runners around me to try to find others who were doing the same, so I could learn from them.

This change in perspective and focus made both races much more enjoyable. I was not worried about passing and being passed (well, until the last mile of each race, anyway), and just focused on how I was running, on enjoying running within the group, and catching glimpses of the handful of runners who were doing the same, but better. What I realized was that the really excellent runners fell into two groups:  some appeared to expend less energy and have smiles on their faces while the others ran with contorted bodies, faces grimacing with equal parts determination and pain.  Now that I see there is a choice, my new goal is to train to be the light joyful runner. Had my first lesson observing the kids running the mile race before we headed home.