Thanksgiving Reunion

Back in Ohio with my Mama and the Silent Month is done


So I was hanging out throwing the baseball with my old next-door neighbor/friend David Snow yesterday in the rain when he told me about the Turkey Trot, a 5k race through Columbus, Ohio on Thanksgiving morning. I remember my brother Dustin used to run in these back in the day, but I had never done one. Actually, I have never participated in any organized race of any sort, besides in gym class growing up. So anyway, I decided to do it. He told me to meet him outside his house at 7am this morning.

The race cost $27 bucks to run, and $30 on race day... well, to those who felt like paying. I ran numberless :) So here we are, David, his friend David (last name Rose), and his friend's sister sitting in David's car at the race site, way freaking early. Not to mention, it was raining lightly on and off, the sky was 1000 shades of gray, and it was 41 degrees at race time. Thank God David had a CD of 100's of Bud Light Real Men of Genius ads for us to listen to while looking at all the goofy runners walking by either stretching, doing goofy warmup drills, or just looking way too serious in their leotards with shorts worn over them, among other interesting outfits. Our contribution was an eclectic selection of animal hats David has collected over the years (see pic.) I wore the pig, one of the more aerodynamic hats in the collection.



So anyway, here we are, all couped up inside David's car when he offers me a two year old 'Espresso Love' Gu Energy Packet, which he had actually received when competing in the 2005 Turkey Trot. It was 12 months expired, but I didn't care. I waited until 15 minutes before race time, just like the instructions on the package said to do, before gobbling down this packet of old caffeine-loaded syrupy goo. MMM... gobble gobble! It took a while to get the whole packet of ancient Gu down my throat, but I did it, and enjoyed every bit of it. I know it's not really good to have caffeine in your system before running a race, but hey, I figured it was only 3.1 miles - it won't wear off before then.

Fast-forward 15 minutes, 4,000 people all jumbled together at the starting line. This is when David commented again that "it won't be too bad, only 3.1 miles!" Not a second after he said that a person behind us told us that it is actually 5 miles. 'Crap!' I thought to myself, there's no way this packet's gonna last me 5 miles!'

The siren rang and we were off. It was clear that if I was gonna make any headway I was gonna have to run through the grass on the left side. So this is what I did for at least the first mile. I was passing people like mad and I think maybe only 1 person passed me for that first mile. The second mile was a little slower, but still really good. By the time we got to the turn-around I knew this was going to be a grind getting back, seeing as it was mostly uphill and the wind was blowing right at me. I almost lost my pig. By the way, I did have a lot of good comments, like, "Go Pig!" as I pulled my sweatpants up that I had accidentally put on backwards this morning (it was so early!) I couldn't tie them from behind and run at the same time, so I just kept pulling them up whenever they began to sag. We were nearing the end of the 3rd mile and I was still passing a lot of people, but more were passing me now.

It was at this time, that something inside of me gave out. It was like my tank just instantly hit empty and I was not feeling good. I thought about the old Gu 2x Espresso Love packet that I'd had... oh boy... time to pull over. I pulled off into the grass and dry-heaved a few times, before catching a second wind. The Chariots of Fire tune that David played in the car kept ringing in my head, along with the quote, "What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger." All that and the fact that I just don't think I could handle seeing David pass me in his big goofy Elephant hat. (Mind you, David has never beaten me in a running race in the past between the two of us, and I wasn't about to lose my perfect record.) So, I jumped back out there and blazed past a lot of people that I had already passed earlier before I got the feeling again. Time to pull over... I dry-heaved a few more times and again jumped back out there, this time most people were passing me and I could feel my legs tightening from slight dehydration (I've been through this before with tennis :)) The last mile and a half I felt like junk but I made it about 30 meters from the finish line before this little punk high school kid decides he's gonna try and pass me. With the crowd all gathered around and watching, I yelled "Come on!" at the top of my lungs and burst past him to the Finish line. I gave him a low five before walking slowly through the line to get a pumpkin pie (for the first 1000 finishers.) I quickly got the dry-heave feeling inside and realized it wouldn't be good to be walking slowly in this line. Besides, I didn't even have a number for a pie anyway. So I stepped out of line ASAP and my running part of Thanksgiving was done. I had run five miles in 35 minutes, 30 seconds. Next year I'll be prepared to go the distance...

Well I gotta get off here and go to my second Thanksgiving Dinner at my Mom's friend's house across the street.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD DAY!

Signing off,

~ Nathan

P.S. Go watch 'Into the Wild' in the theatres if you haven't already - best movie I've seen in years. You'll see why...