Turkey trot not

Today's run (street): 3.9 miles

Happy Thanksgiving. This is many people's favorite holiday, mine too I guess, because it is so inclusive. No divisive factors such as religion, culture or politics at play. As long as you don't think about what really happened on or around the first Thanksgiving (SIOR recently made the point that the original dinner was anything but inclusive), you can enjoy a middle of the workweek break. We're heading out for Thanksgiving dinner soon. Rumor has it that our hosts are cooking a lot of vegan food, but there WILL be turkey.

Thanksgiving time is a runner's paradise, because of all the local Turkey Trots that happen around the holiday. I had a good time, under miserable conditions, while running the Long Beach Turkey Trot last Sunday. We were signed up for this morning's Nissequoge 5K, but we decided to forgo our plans in favor of doing something else. We've run that race for the past three years as a family, at a very easy pace. I've never run a competitive race on Thanksgiving day, but I'm thinking of changing that next year.

Instead of a Turkey Trot, I settled for a neighborhood run this morning. With 12 MPH winds, it felt like 21° outside. I probably overdressed for the run, but the Long Beach experience was still fresh on my mind. Even so, when the wind hit head-on, it seemed to pass through every layer I was wearing. I was feeling okay about my progress until I encountered another runner coming from a connecting street who turned onto the road behind me. He passed me a few seconds later, before taking a right while I kept going straight.

I sometimes have trouble understanding why people run faster than me. This person seemed to be maintaining the same cadence as me and his stride was not particularly open. Yet he moved at a faster rate than me. Puzzling. I know that, in reality, his cadence was faster and his stride was longer. It just didn't look like that.

Today feels like Sunday, but the weekend is yet to come. I plan to address the speed issue on one of those weekend days by running intervals at the track. Perhaps that, and a continued focus on increasing my average distance, will help me achieve the elusive sub-9 pace that I used to expect when I raced. I like to think that I would have saved 30 seconds per mile on Sunday if I wasn't running into 29 MPH winds. But that may just be wishbone thinking.