St. James Turkey Trot

Cubbie called me up and said, "The shirts are really cool for the turkey trot this year, we should do it." Hmmmm, long sleeve tech shirt...why not.

So we went to the school and signed up. I went online and looked at last year's results. There were about 250 runners and not too many people in my 35-39 age group. Hmmm, maybe I will run a PR and come away with a little hardware?

I have had a pretty tough two weeks of training, I have been walking around feeling sore and creaky for the last few days. I didn't want to get my hopes up but I felt like I could have a good showing, pull off a 25:30, 25:00 pie in the sky time. My current PR is 25:54 so anything under that is sucess right?

I woke up this morning and the weather was perfect. 55 degrees and slightly foggy. I like running in these conditions. After taking Jada out for the morning walk, I headed to the Isle of Hope. The parking lot had an atmosphere of quiet excitement. Seeing as this race was sponsored by a school; there were a lot of young runners.

After warming up and listening to the race director's instructions, we were off. Cubbie's goal was to stick with me and my goal was to run 8:10 splits.

1st mile~8:13. I labored to get to that number and was not sure 25:00 was going to be in reach. I began to examine my training routine and was trying to figure out were I needed to improve in order to break that 8 minute barrier.

Enough negative thoughts, focus on the run at hand!!! "Fast, Fluid, Form!"

2nd mile~16:43. When I ran the Heart of Savannah 5K at the beginning of October I hit the 2 mile mark at 16:44, so I was running an equal pace to my current PR. Just don't fade...

At about 2 1/2 miles in I looked at Cubbie and said, "4 good minutes, let's go!" We pushed and she held on as best she could. We came into the last turn and a couple of my buddies, having already finished, were on the corner cheering.

I could see the clock, time was ticking. Come on, pass this last runner before the line....

25:52.

PR by two seconds.

Why am I disappointed?

Have I not worked harder than this time suggests?

Have I worked hard enough to think that I should be crushing PR's?

Why did it seem so easy to run faster than this ten years ago?

Where am I going with my training?

Okay, so I think I am being a little hard on myself.

I hang around to see the awards being handed out, secretly hoping to hear my name. I am sure that they will announce Cubbie's name.

2nd place male 35-39...Thomas Armbruster.
Hey, that's me?!?1!

Cubbie~3rd place female ??-?? (not sure Cubbbie would like me to give away her age.)

My buddy David ran 18 and change and finished 2nd in the 40-44 AG. I guess my AG is a little easier this time around.

So....The question at hand is, "Where am I going with my running?"

My A race is the Tybee Half Marathon. Everything I am doing is leading up to that. I am doing speed work. I am doing long runs. I am running 5 days a week. Maybe I ran a really good race today and as I progress, time will be harder to cut.

I keep comparing myself to what I was able to run 10 years ago before I stopped running. I have been back at this for 16 months and I have seen great progress. For today, I am a winner. Tomorrow? 8 mile run on the bridge.

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.