Flemington Turkey Trot

Time - 20:55
Pace - 6:44
Runners - 3851
Place - 189
Age Place - 5th
Heart Rate Average - 155
HR peak - 164

There is nothing better than running a race on Thanksgiving morning and my race of choice has been the Flemington Turkey Trot. It use to be the only race on Thanksgiving and when I first started running it back in 1995, and there were only 400 finishers. There were 3851 finishers today their largest field to date.

That being said, I noticed a few new races nearby on turkey day. One in Hopewell and another in Princeton which is only 10 miles from the house. Only problem with the Princeton race, it was an 8am start. Ken White has joined me in a bunch of the Turkey trots in Flemington and he wanted to stick with tradition so Flemington would be the choice.

Ken and I arrived very early and got a prime parking spot and hung in the car prior to the race because it was colder than we thought. It seemed the temps were dropping so the warmth of the car was the call.

Ken is coming off bruised ribs from a ski fall and is slowly working his way back to form and wanted to go for a sub 24. I wanted a sub 21 which I have been running and hopefully something closer to 20:30. This meant we needed to be up front with the fast kids. With a race size of over 3500 if you don't get up front the first mile will be very slow.

Gun went off and all the young kids sprung for the early lead. The race seems to attract many of the local HS and College track kids since their seasons are over. They mean business alos as the winning time was 14:58 for some 24 year from Pennsylvania.

I got into a good groove early and when the first mile split was called out in 6:13, I knew something was wrong. Either I was going too fast or the timers were wrong. My watch said 6:33 which i knew was correct. My goal now was just keep the pace and finish strong. A top 3 finish in my age group would be tough today because of the depth of the competition.

I hit the second mile in 13:00 which was closer to the correct time and now I needed to just finish strong. I was running in a pact of a few fast runners and I wanted to keep ahead of them. At one point I said to myself, "why am i doing this every week". It was hurting a bit but I knew the finish was coming so I gave it what i had left in the tank.

I wasn't crazy with the 20:55 time because I thought I was going faster but it is not an easy course to navigate because of all the turns. I didn't make the top 3 , finishing 5th in the 50-54 age group. Ken finished up in 23:45 which was great since he has being injured. I also saw Dennis Lake there and he finished in 22:38. Mark and Rosemarie Strawn also were there for the second straight year.

I got home at 11:45 and the food fest began. Ro made a whole bunch of traditional food and I made lamb in phyllo which I have been playing with the last few weeks.

I need to get some rest because tomorrow I am running the Born to Run 5 miler in Freehold. i will be taking it easy on the run but hard on the drinking at the Court Jester.