Wild Turkey 5 Miler

 

Today was the annual five mile race in Salem. Ellen and her friend Jessica ran it as well. Cold and windy as usual but I managed to run better than an 8:30 pace.

Wild Turkey 5 Miler 2022

 Ellen, a couple of her friends, and I ran the Wild Turkey Run in Salem on Thursday.

I ran a decent overall pace at 8:18 but I'm more happy that I was able to run a sub 8 minute mile pace on mile 5. I haven't been under an 8 minute pace much lately.

Ellen walk/ran the race and came in at 58 minutes. The weather was cold but little wind and clear, so it was a good day for running.

Wild Turkey 5 Miler

Ellen and I ran the annual Wild Turkey 5 Miler in Salem on Thanksgiving. It was cold but there was no wind so it was a nice day for a run. Not particularly fast but it was fun.

From the Garmin. I did manage to get down to just about an 8:00 min/mile pace at the end.

Wild Turkey 5 mile run 2019

I ran the Wild Turkey 5 miler in Salem on Thanksgiving morning, an annual tradition. The weather was rainy, but fortunately not too cold - in the mid to high 40's. My legs were all there and I ran well, averaging a 7:48 pace. If I 'd known I was that close to breaking 39 minutes, I wouldn't have allowed myself to be caught in the crowd at the start and lose some time!

Splits:

Wild Turkey 5 Mile Race

I ran the Wild Turkey 5 Mile Run in Salem yesterday. I debated about even going as my left knee still isn't right. Wednesday night I ran the D5K and it was bothering me enough that I ran slower than 10 minute miles. So I didn't see much point in hobbling around Salem. But I woke up early (as usual) and my knee felt alright, and I was interested to see what would happen in a genuine race situation, or if the knee felt different if I tried to run hard.

As it turned out I was glad I went to the race. I ran into a number of people I haven't seen in a while, including Jeff Macinnis, who hasn't run the D5K in many months. And I ran better than I expected. Maybe it was the adrenalin kicking in for a race situation, but I was able to run sub 9 minute miles after the first mile, and although my knee started to bother me around mile 4, it didn't slow me down and I didn't seem to have any permanent effects after the race from running hard.

Racewire got a picture of me finishing, but the camera was staring into the sun so there isn't a lot to see. I'm the big red blob in the middle:

Salem Wild Turkey 5 miler

We had decent weather for the Salem Wild Turkey Run. A little cold but no rain (or snow!). This is a big race, about 2,000 participants, so we arrived an hour before the race to get a good parking spot right off Salem Common.

Here is the gang on the Common before the race:

Aaron, Ellen, Ethan on Salem Common

I planned on running with both Aaron and Ellen, but Aaron and I lost Ellen right at the start in the big crowd. I spent part of the first mile running backwards looking for her, which turned out to be a mistake as she started faster than us and was well ahead by the end of the first mile. So Aaron and I just got into a comfortable groove. Our first mile was over 10 minutes, and we negative split it from there, ending with an 8:44 mile and a time of 47:17. Ethan happened upon his old physics teacher, Mr. Black, and they ended up dueling each other with Ethan finishing on top with a time of 38:33. Marianne continues to crush it and banged out 7 minute miles, finishing in 35:01. And, along the way, implicitly beat my 5k PR. Looks like I'll have to crack down at the Danvers 5K and run a new PR!

Here is Ethan at the finish. Aaron, Ellen and I didn't manage to get any finish line pictures as we finished in too much of a crowd.

Ethan at the finish

That's it for formal racing until Disney. I'll still run the weekly D5K, hopefully taking it easy so I don't risk injury in the runup to Disney, but I haven't yet managed such discipline. Here's hoping I get lucky.