I BURNED the turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving! A little late I know but I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I had a really great 2 days of celebrating with family. As you know I was doing the Anthem Turkey Trot 5k. The weather predictions were calling for single digits in the morning started.
but the sun was beautiful bright and warm and it was right around 25 when the race

The race was billed as a very fast course, and fast it was! As you can see there was very little flat ground but lots of downhill, downhill is good...of course along with downhill you must take some uphill. It was a pretty smallish race of about 300 10k runners and 1000 5k. And let me just note that this was the first time that not only did I not have to wait in line for a port-a-potty, in fact I didn't have to use a port-a-potty as the race expo was in the recreation center. And I was amazed to be able to walk right in to the bathrooms and not have to wait, at all, that's right no waiting! Doesn't take much to make me happy. :)

The 5k started 15 minutes and up the hill from the 10k race so after watching that group take off I headed up the hill. Just a short wait before we heard GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GO! And we took off. I did some weaving in out and passed a fair amount of people as you can see the first almost 3/4 of a mile was downhill and it was fantastic! I don't have mile splits as I was using this race to do my TT running assessment for my training program, but according to Garmin my first mile was done at a 9:35 pace...wow can I just say I'm amazed! It was right around that point that I once again saw the girl from both the Park to Park 10k and the Denver R'n'R 1/2 marathon slamming her feet next to me. Although this time she seemed to not be doing the intervals. She has such a distinctive run I could hear her running behind me. I would like to say that I ran the whole 3 miles but I didn't. I took a couple of very short walk breaks on some of the hills and I walked the water station. It didn't seem like long before we were headed back up the hill to the finish line. And I heard the announcer call out my name as I passed (love the personalized bibs!) I hit my garmin and looked at the time and I was to say the least floored! The time on my Garmin showed 3.18 miles and 31:53 with an average pace 10:03 Now for a person who was hoping to beat 35 minutes this was fantastic!!! I was so happy! Now I have to way that the official results came in quite a bit different and I don't know why that is (it was a chip timed race), usually I'm within seconds of the same time however I'm almost as happy with my official time 33:17 and I'm thrilled with my ranking! I was 199 out of 497 women and in my AG 40-49 I was 25 out of 60. All in all I thought it was fantastic race, well run and I love the t-shirt, that's important you know!

After the turkey trot I got cleaned up and headed to my parents where the 3 of us quickly consumed a wonderful turkey dinner and headed out to my Aunt and Uncles farm between Holyoke and Wray Colorado (about a 3 hour drive to the middle of nowhere) We made it just in time to join in for the hay ride

The rest of the evening was filled with food, talking, "Kari"oki, fiddling, roping and dancing in the barn. A good time was had.




Seriously fun stuff! Most of us were staying at a pretty exclusive Private Golf/hunt club out there called Ballyneal. It was nice!!! The rooms were fantastic and the bathrooms huge! My dad and I decided we would go out walk/running Friday morning on the Golf Course. We were a little worried about the cold as when my Dad looked at the car temp it said 13 and there was a slight breeze, however it turned out to be beautiful out there. It is for sure a rolling course!

Now if that wasn't enough the day continued with more food, clay shooting, Minute to Win it games, crafts, and much more fun!





I'm thankful to have such great family and so many wonderful memories!