Stockton 5K Turkey Trot

My first race after the Half-Marathon was last weekend's Turkey Trot in Stockton. We'd driven up to my folks' place in nearby Lodi for the holiday. It had been Jessie's idea to run a Turkey Trot, and I jumped at the chance. Jessie has been my virtual running coach for the past six months, and this was my first chance to run with her.

Well, not with her. There were 5K and 10K distances at this race, and though I originally thought about the longer distance I decided to stick with the 5K. Jessie still did the 10K. (Even if I'd done the same distance, she runs quite a bit faster than I do, at under 8 minutes per mile.) Candy & Molly again signed up with me to run/walk the 5K, as well. I was really happy about that. (Sam opted to sleep in at the hotel!)

I did ok, coming in somewhere around 30:04. I've run a few 5K's by now, but only have a couple reliable times (the race through CBS in Studio City wasn't accurate enough). The first 5K since I started training saw me complete it in less than a half-hour, at 29:47. Of course I wanted to do at least that well this time, but it didn't work out. I know some time was lost on a really slow start to the race: there were 3,000 people all run/walking together and it took some time to first reach the starting line and then separate yourself from the mob. I think with a cleaner start I would've finished in under 30, perhaps as good as my earlier time.

More important, I enjoyed myself. I forgot my headphones but Candy lent me her iPod which happened to have the same run music I planned to listen to. It was cool enough to make a longsleeve race shirt comfortable, not hot. I didn't walk at any time, and didn't stop for water at the halfway point, either. In previous races I haven't really pushed at the end, but this time I did. I think I pushed too early, though, because I kind of ran out of gas near the end (still running, but not as fast).