I ran a Thanksgiving Turkey Trot the other day. The weather was as good as it gets for late November in the Pacific Northwest: cool, dry, and kind of sunny. Basically, I looked at the weather forecast, and when rain wasn't listed, I signed up the boys and me. While a 5K doesn't burn all that many calories, it helped to justify the binge eating that I was going to do later in the day. And besides, what else am I going to do on a holiday morning, right?
We made the trek to NE Tacoma for the Norpoint Turkey Trot. After picking up our shirts and numbers ($35 for a short sleeved one color white t-shirt for Ryan? Really?), we headed over with the McMonigal family. I warmed up briefly with David and JJ and took my place at the start, several rows behind the front, figuring all of the high schoolers in front of me were going to be going a lot faster than I was. My plan was to ease my way through the first mile, and pick it up. The gun went off (it was an actual cannon!) without a countdown, so we were all a bit surprised. As I got started, within the first 100 yards, some bozo went sprinting by me and cut me off, tripping me. I struggled to remain upright for about 20 yards, before finally losing my balance and falling, scraping my knee and elbow. I think somebody else went down behind me as well. I rolled over, got up and sprinted up to yell at the bozo who tripped me. As I caught and passed him, I yelled... well, let's just say that it wasn't "Have a nice day." So much for taking it easy. I ran the rest of the way without looking down at my knee, because I didn't want to see how badly it was scraped up. I did look at my elbow, and my long-sleeve top wasn't torn, so that was a good sign. I decided not to look at my watch for my splits; turns out my splits were pretty reasonable, given the topography of the course: 6:25, 6:17, 7:00. I probably seeded myself too far back, as I was only passed by two people and passed a bunch, finishing 18th overall and 2nd in my AG (40-49). Total time: 20:32.
I went back to find the boys, and David was moving right along, and finished in 24:xx. Ryan wasn't too far back at 30:xx. David was 4th in his AG and Ryan was 9th. Altogether, not too shabby a performance for the Ling family. As we were walking back home, my left hip started tightening up, and I realized that I probably tweaked it a bit during the fall. And yes, there was blood and some abrasions on my knee and some abrasions on my elbow, and there is a hole in the palm of one of my gloves.
So... since we're chip-timed, what was the point of the bozo sprinting ahead and tripping me? No idea, since he ended up finishing around 25-26 minutes. I guess I've never understood that. Why is it that people believe they're going to set a PR for their race by sprinting for the first 200 yards of a race and then dying and moving backwards through the field? Especially in a little po-dunk race, what's the point of it? It's not like they're going to be on TV. It's not like it will matter when they cross the start line, since everything is chip-timed now. Ah well, maybe the bozo that tripped me will have learned a lesson about seeding himself and starting more reasonably in the future. Or maybe I just need to get closer to the front...
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