Race Recap: Gallopping Gobbler 4-Mile

My first Thanksgiving Day race! (And possibly my last?) It was cold. Like, under 30°F. I ran a race last March in this type of weather, but I wasn't pregnant then. Or trying to keep my mother warm.

Oh, have I mentioned how awesome my mom is? I figured I would be going to this race solo, but my mom was in town for the holiday and wanted to support me. She didn't run or walk it, and I wasn't even going to suggest it to her. I did loan her a pair of fleece-lined leggings, since her Georgia version of 'winter attire' was quite lacking. Mom luckily got to stay inside a warm building for most of the time I was running.

Only picture you can even tell I was pregnant. (I could tell because I the blue shorts I had wanted to wear don't fit over my fat butt any more!)  A day shy of 21 weeks.

As for the race event, it was . . . eh. It was so bare-bones. "Packet" pick-up consisted of your bib and a t-shirt that didn't even have the year on it (very possibly re-used from last year). But I did get to pick between pink and gray. There was organization to the race, but it kinda felt like the guy in charge just isn't interested any more. (He didn't cash my check for nearly a month, so I was starting to think it got lost in the mail.) The post-race food consisted of a long line with only a bottle of water and some nasty "corn cake" (think rice cake but Indiana-style) sample. Blech. I think all the fastest people got bagels and fruit or something, but I guess they ran out for all of us 'slow' people. (Um, I still finished in the top half! Color me unimpressed.)

Oh, how pregnancy changes things.
I definitely would have been in the next corral up a year ago.

The course, however, was beautiful. We ran about a mile down a street, and then turned into a large cemetery. There were about 5,000 people doing this race (both the 4-mile and 15K races started shared a start and the first 3 miles), so you could see a whole train of people snaking through gentle rolling hills of the cemetery. It was mostly quiet, even though I had my music playlist running. I felt pretty good the whole time, minus some tightness in the bottom right of my baby bump. I couldn't figure out if it was round ligament pain or a stitch-in-the-side. Could have been both, honestly. I just put some pressure on it and mostly ran through it except for one small part of a hill in mile 3.

Fun race story: I overheard a conversation from two 20-something gals behind me. One was saying how she and another buddy come to this cemetery and run all the time. "Yeah, it's beautiful. And there's never anyone here." I turned back and threw in my 2 cents, "Except for all the dead people."

Nary a chuckle. C'mon, that totally deserved a chuckle.

About to cross that finish line!

My final stats for this one:
Chip time: 42:48
Age Group Place: 50 out of 135
Overall: 1192 out of 2495

The website put my pace based on the gun time, which is stupid, so I looked it up on whatsmypace.com (love that site!), and it was 10:42/mi. Not great, but not shabby.

While I was happy to run this race, I was probably even more happy to finish it. Winter running is not my cup of tea. At all. (I don't even like tea, so is anything really my cup of tea?) If I do another Thanksgiving Day race, it most likely won't be this one. I think I would have been happier at a smaller race and a shorter distance.