Naperville Turkey Trot 5K

Finally, a 5K! I had done one since last year's Turkey Trot and was a little curious to see what I could run it in. I was hoping to break 6 minute miles and really wanted a 17:30 5K(5:38 min/mile). My brothers Mike, Dominic, and Sam were also running along with my aunt Laurie.

There were over 4500 runners that ran the race so packet pickup was a little hectic. We finally got out of there and made my way close to the front. It was pretty packed so when the race started at 8:00 am, I had to jam my way through a bunch of runners to stay at the pace I wanted to. After getting off to a moderate start, I started passing people. At about the half mile mark, I had passed up just about everybody that had overestimated their speed and were already starting to look bad. I kept passing people up and passed the first mile in 5:40, just slighltly off of my ideal pace.


I still felt really good, better than I usually do at this point in a 5K. I picked up the pace a bit and passed quite a few more runners. When I got to the halfway mark, I was starting to feel the effects of moving faster, but still was moving well. I passed up the leading women and a couple others at this point. I reached mile 2 in 11:15, posting a 5:35 mile, putting me right on pace.

However, the next mile got really tough. I knew I was on pace and really wanted that 17:30, but my legs were toast. I wasn't passing anyone up at this point, but at the same time nobody was passing me. My legs were in such bad shape that the thought of being physically unable to run to the rest of the way crossed my mind. However, I just grimaced my teeth and remembered some of those tough miles in my 50 and 100 miler runs and figured that about 3 minutes of pain probably wasn't so bad after all.


Finally, we came to the home stretch. Usually, I have something left at this point, but there was nothing left for a final sprint. The two top women passed me at this point and I just kept my pace for the rest of the way in. I crossed the finish line in 17:49, off my goal, but a new PR for the 5K. I was just happy to finish. The overall pace was a 5:45, meaning that my last mile was just under 6 minutes. I managed to finish 34th overall and 7th in my age group.
Overall results are available at http://www.chicagoaa.com/results/searchable.html.

Stay tuned, next week is my first trail marathon, here I come Tecumseh!

Here are some pics. My bro Sam is on bottom and Mike's on the right.