Up & At 'Em Turkey Trot 5K (Johnson City, TN)

After driving Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning up to the Johnson City, TN area, I went into this race on Thanksgiving morning with no expectations. On top of the driving, the last time that I ran was Sunday at the Lighfest 5K, the race time temperature was 25 degrees, the race location was at about 1700 feet elevation, the course was full of hills, and I slept the night before with my 9 year old's knees and elbows in my back (we shared a bed at my in-laws house)! Plenty of excuses for a bad time.

When I picked up my race packet, they said they were expecting 3000 people for the race. In the end they about 2200 register and 1725 or so finish. This was the biggest race that I have run in so far, but somehow I ended up starting the race at about the same spot I usually do - not at the front, but not too far back either. When the race started, the front group went out really fast! By the time I looked at my watch we had gone about a half mile and at a 6:43 pace! I knew that was way too fast, so I backed off a little. I ended up doing the first mile in 7:22, which was pretty good, but I couldn't hold that pace. The next mile was 25 seconds slower and the third mile I just ran out of gas. People were passing me left and right (literally), but I couldn't do anything about it. I pretty much coasted over the finish line and I recovered very quickly, which means I could have gone faster. The race finished inside Steve Spurrier Field and everyone received a medal. I finished at 24:34, which wasn't my best 5K time, but it wasn't my worst either, and given all of the variables I encountered, I'm pleased with my time.

Here is a link to the official results.

And here is the info from my watch. The watch is consistently reporting that the courses are longer than 5K. I'm sure the courses are measured accurately, so it looks like the watch is off. The time was the same as the official time (within 1 second), so at least it has that going for it.