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.

Run Ichabod, Run

 

“…He stopped, his heart pounding in fear. Before his startled eyes, a white mist burst forth from an unmarked grave and formed into a large horse carrying a headless rider.  Ichabod Crane let out a terrible scream as the horse leapt toward him at a full gallop. He took to his heels, running as fast as he could…”

Last Saturday, we found ourselves in “Sleepy Howell” for the Headless Horseman 5K. It was our first night race, which was pretty cool. We often train in the dark, but have never raced in it.

   The course was fun and fast, taking us through downtown and then lakeside and through a luminary-lit cemetery.

The headless horseman started things off, oddly, galloping away from us. I guess he was intimidated, as there were 600 of us.

Running in a hooded cloak and mask was about as comfortable as you might think, so I pulled the hood down and the mask off after the first quarter mile. A few people thought I was wearing a black dress as a costume. That’s ok. Black goes with everything.

I started at the front of the group, as is typically my strategy. I’d rather get passed by a few fast runners than have to pass hundreds of slower runners. Lined up along side me was superman, a zombie, a male nun with a baby stroller, who others around us and who knew him, assured us would still kick all of our asses, which he did.

Angela started a little further back. She has a more nuanced calculation when deciding where to place herself in the pack. It involves the BMI of the other competitors, how much crap they’re wearing, and the phase of the moon.

We both ran our hardest, and both of us ran paces we were proud of. Angela placed 7^th out of the 50 women in her age group, which is nothing to sneeze at. I ended up placing 2^nd in my age group and 25^th overall. There were a lot of fast runners. Many of them were young. I’m glad that I wasn’t in the 14-15 year old age group, for example, were my time would have earned me 8^th in my age group. Where do these kids come from?

Post race refreshment was fun, a mix of the usual stuff and Halloween candy, which was pretty cool.

Overall, it was a fun race and a good time. We’ll be back next year.