Why should you Feed the Turkey? The answer is simple – because we created this event to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The mission of St. Jude’s is to “advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases.” Every kid deserves the chance to lead a happy and healthy life, and hopefully to run their own 5k someday, and St. Jude is at the forefront of helping kids who are suffering in ways that no child should. When you enter the Feed the Turkey Virtual Turkey Trot you will be asked to donate $1, $5, or $10 to St. Jude – it’s a small amount, but our numbers are large, and we can make a difference.

We hope you’ll join us, and please encourage your friends and family to join the fun as well.  Here’s what you need to do to participate:

1. Head over to feedtheturkey.com to sign up
2. Post that you are participating on dailymile, Facebook, Twitter, and/or your own blog (feel free to use the image in this post!)
3. Make your donation (levels are easy to handle – $1, $5, or $10) which will go 100% to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
4. Run or walk a 5k (or more) on Thanksgiving day.  It can be an official race, a solo effort, or just a fun run with friends.
5. Head back to feedtheturkey.com to post your results, print your finisher’s certificate, and be entered for prize giveaways!

If you are a fellow running blogger, Facebook user, or Twitter runner, please help us spread the word – you’re more than welcome to use any of the text and images I have posted here if you choose to do so. Let’s all pitch in to make this event a huge success for St. Jude!

The race started at 9:00, so we headed out at 8:00 with my mom and little brother in tow, got some coffee for the non-runners, and headed into historic Laurel for the race! My dad was asking all morning if he should put his bib on yet. Nope, dad, not yet. Wait until we get to the race…

We were numbers 3 and 4 – that’s right! Elites. Total pros.

We had some trouble finding the starting line, though. Upon finding the finish line (easy to spot!) we were told by the volunteers that the start line was “just up the road,” but … after much walking we still couldn’t find it. Finally we realized that we had been walking past it the whole time, and that it was just marked very poorly and not manned by a volunteer. Anyway, at 9:00 we were lined up at the start, the horn blew, and all 50-60ish of us were off and running!

Dad and I stayed together during the race – I had my Garmin on so I could keep him on pace for his sub-30:00. I was a little worried because he’s had some ankle pain recently (achilles tendon, actually) and I didn’t want him to get hurt. But he was a champ! He’s been really smart and he’s been icing it after runs lately, so it held up during the race. The first mile we got down in 9:23, running along the streets of Laurel. My mom and brother got pictures of us flying by up the hill! The second mile we kept steady at 9:29. There were a lot of little hills this mile, but we didn’t let them slow us down. Mile 3 we started to put on the gas going down some of the hills we’d climbed in mile 2. We got it down in 9:05, and sprinted the last .1 miles for an average pace of 8:24 for that little segment. Dad wanted to kick it for the last .2 miles, and we totally did. We came sprinting in, gave the carrot-top guy a high five on our way by, and crossed the finish line together! No official time posted yet, but according to Garmy I’d say its about a 29:15.
Dad was a great running partner for the race – it was awesome to chat with such an awesome dude for 3.1 miles! We kept each other on track and it was an awesome bonding experience. Thanks a ton to my mom and brother for cheering us on – it helped! Dad and I headed out for a nice bike ride today (17 miles in a little over an hour – his hilly route kicked my butt!) and it felt great.

Oh, and he’s already looking into his next race :) Looks like someone’s caught the racing bug, too! There’s something about racing… it’s not about the competition or the free bagels or the time on the clock, it’s about being around people who are excited to be out and running, and trying to give your best out there. It’s you and the other runners against the course, against the weather, against the clock.
Or maybe it’s just the simple joy of being outside on a beautiful day with your family!

Why do you race? Or not race?

Marathons:

• The Big Sur International Marathon
  One look at the photos from this race and you can’t help but want to run it. Participants wind their way along Highway One between Big Sur and Carmel, along the Pacific Ocean. It’s gorgeous. Bart Yasso said that “If we were told that we could run only one marathon in our lifetime, Big Sur would have to be it.”
• The New York Marathon
  A no-brainer! I’ll definitely be entering the lottery again this year, assuming marathon #1 doesn’t cause me to swear off running forever. One of my running buddies from the Charlottesville Trail Runners Club (CTRC) just ran the NYCM this past weekend, so I’m sure I’ll be asking him about a million questions about it this Sunday during our group run.
• The San Francisco Marathon
  I love San Francisco :)

Shorter Distances:

• The Susan G Komen Global Race for the Cure (5k)
  Great cause, great crowd, great race! Enough said.
• Charlottesville 10 Miler
  This is supposed to be such a fun course through my college town – lots of people I know ran it last year and loved it. The 10 miler is such a fun distance, too!
• The 4th Year 5k
  A classic for any UVA runner!

Miscellaneous:

• A Relay
  What better way to get to know someone than to run a relay with them? There are so many good relays out there. One of the things I’d like to do is get my local trail running club to go do one as a team!
• A Mud Run
  These look like so much fun! What a great way to let loose and take a ride on the wild side.
• A Sprint Triathlon!
  The only obstacle here is that I’m sketched out by the amount of geese that live near Centennial Park, which would be the most local tri for me… somehow I think I’d be hard pressed to get into that water!

Past Races:

5/16/2009 – Piney Orchard 5k  – PR @ 26:22
5/31/2009 – Zooma Annapolis 10k – PR @ 1:00:01
9/26/2009 – Virginia 10 Miler – PR @ 1:34:25

Upcoming Races (Registered):

10/24/2009 – Charlottesville Fall Classic 10k

Image from BadToTheBone.biz

I’ll be happy with anything under an hour, but I’ll be ecstatic if I could make it in 58 minutes or less (9:21 miles). A little over 3 weeks left until race day! More on my plans for the race in my next post.

11/14/2009 – Pack It Out Trail Half Marathon

This will be my first half, and my first trail race, so I’d just like to finish.  I have absolutely no time goal at all. My plan is to take it slow and enjoy the race. I’m guaranteed to PR as long as I finish!

Possible Races:

10/10/2009 – Relay for Life 5k @ Newcomb Plaza
10/31/2009 – Monster Mash 5k Dash (UVA Club Track)
11/26/2009 – Prediction Run 10k (Howard County Striders)
3/25/2009 – Bel Monte Trail Endurance Run 25k
4/17/2010 – Charlottesville Half Marathon

The drive there was dark. Lynchburg is about an hour South of Charlottesville, so we hopped on 29 South. It turns out that it was actually a beautiful drive through the Virginia countryside, but we didn’t find that out until the way back, when we could actually see. We got a little lost looking for the road that would take us to the school where the race began – we thought we had gone past it, so we turned right into a parking lot to turn around. Turns out the parking lot was the parking lot for the school. Lucky us!

We shivered our way through packet pickup, pinned our bibs on, stretched, and headed out to the starting line. There were about 1500 runners total, with about 900 of those running the 10 miler and the rest running in the 4 miler. The course was an out and back from EC Glass High School to Riverside Park and back.  The first two miles of the course were downhill, and my friend and I stuck together at about a 9:45 mile. Then we hit the flat(ish) portion of the course, and at mile 3.5 we watched as the first runner blew by us going the other way. He ended up finishing in 48:40, a speed I can’t even fathom.

When we hit the park at mile 5 my friend and I split up and I went on ahead. I took a Chocolate Outrage GU and felt amazing, and before I knew it I was cranking out miles 5-8 at an 8:40 pace. The crowds were great, the bands were awesome, and the other runners were really nice and cheered me on. I high-fived an adorable little girl who was collecting them from passing runners, and got some water from another youngster who was helping out at the aid stations. I wish I’d stayed with water the entire race, because at mile 8 I had some gatorade and it was disgusting.

I hit the last hill and it was brutal, setting me back to a 10:00 pace to finish it out. By the time I could see the finish line I didn’t have much kick left in me! The post-race was very well organized with cold, wet towels, medals, helpers to take off the timing chips, and the best bagels in the world. Lots of fruit was available and they were handing out those delicious Hersheys Dark Chocolate Nuggets with Almonds (which I couldn’t stomach at the time but took some for the road).

I had a goal for the race of 1:40, as I have never run a 10 miler before and only had one day to prepare for a race. In the middle of the race I was able to shave off a lot of time, and decided to finish as strong as I could. My time was 1:34:25, way better than I had wanted to do! I was also very pleased that my 10k split was less than my previous PR. That definitely gives me confidence as my second 10k approaches (the Charlottesville Fall Classic on Oct 24). What I need to work on is being able to start off strong – usually it takes me 2-3 miles to really get going. I think that maybe taking a Gu after the first mile might be helpful in giving me the extra boost.

All in all it was a great race and I will definitely go next year if I have the transportation!
Click here for my Garmin data for this race

Halfway through my first summer as a college student, however, I find myself missing Charlottesville. I miss walking everywhere, even in bad weather. I miss having mini parties with popcorn and the third season of How I Met Your Mother. Most of all I miss my roommate and all of my other best friends at school (you know who you are).

That being said, I have loved being home. It’s so hard to imagine not being around my family again. I told my mom yesterday that I was just going to take my brother with me to Charlottesville when I went back. She didn’t think that was funny for some reason.

Work has been amazing. I am so lucky and privileged to be working with such intelligent, creative, and friendly people — I will definitely miss being able to talk about computers all day and not bore anyone. I’ve learned perl, javascript, C, and Visual Basic, as well as becoming more skilled with Microsoft and Linux commands. I’ve written technical documents, pitched proposals, and led negotiations. And the summer’s only half over!

The summer has started out both refreshing (no homework!) and educational (perhaps more so than school in some ways), and I am looking forward to the rest of my time at home. This Friday I head to Michigan for my grandfather’s 75th birthday (cooking for 18 people! eek!), and the day after I return I will have to face something I’ve been dreading for years. My wisdom teeth are scheduled to be extracted.

Best wishes,
Kate