Day 3,874 —Turkey Day 2024: Kirkwood/Webster Turkey Trot!—

 

         I thought I would run to the start line this morning, so add around 10 miles to the planned 9 miles from the two races (6 and 3). But I was up until after 1 a.m., and even though I got up at 5, it took me a minute to rally, and by then it was past time for me to get there by the start, so I had to drive. I still parked over a mile from the start, so that was something to add to the race, but I was getting nervous about getting there before the start, but I made it with 9 minutes to spare, and then was surprised that my brother was there! 

         He talked about coming yesterday, but I hadn’t heard from him this morning, so I wasn’t sure, but there he was! We used to always run this race together when he lived in town. I have done at one point with most of my family, so it was great that he made it. I was hoping his son would come too, but he was sick this morning, so he didn’t make it. My brother said that he won his class mile in school, so it would have been fun to see how he might respond to all the people who come out for this race. 

         

3 Mile

 

I ran the first mile a little over with my brother, we ran around an 8-minute mile, and then I pushed the next tow and finished about 21 minutes, so I was pretty happy with that. I tried to convince Ben to do the 6-mile race with me, but he needed to get back to his family, so he did the first half mile maybe before he headed to his car. 

6 Mile 

It went by fast, and for most of it I was passing people, so that is always fun, and distracting, but when it got to about 2 miles left, I was just trying to maintain a sub-7-minute pace, which I think I did. 

I still had a mile left back to my car and my watch didn’t turn back on, so the watch missed like .3 of this run, but it is okay. What a great day! It was so cold this year! Because this is the only race I still do that’s a shorter distance, it takes me back to all the times when I ran it with Ben and my other two siblings. My parents used to come down to see us. The streets haven’t changed much over the years, but I am faster now.