Exercise Log 11.28.13 (YMCA Turkey Trot 5-Mile)

Quick log of today’s run, which was the only real workout I got in today due to the gym being closed early on Thanksgiving. Today was the annual Turkey Trot 5-mile race downtown to raise funds for the YMCA, which I think was pretty cool. The day was dry but cold, painfully cold, maybe 20 degrees.

A handful of picks on my Flickr of me, Ryan and Trish at the race can be found here

Part of what I did today was figure out what it takes to run in the coldness. I dressed in layers, I had to do it on the cheap with what I owned but the YMCA helped by providing a nice long sleeved overshirt. So I slapped on a standard gym sweat wicking shirt, put a thin cotton t-shirt on after, put on the long sleeved YMCA shirt and over it slapped a random t-shirt from an old run. Wore my hoodie, a winter cap and some new light gloves. For bottom pants, I wore my awesome Under Armor leggings, very light gym sweat pants and my work khakis to act as kind of wind breakers.

All said that’d sound like I was ridiculously overdressed, but it was about 15-20 degrees out. About 2 miles in, when my toes started being feelable again and my body was naturally heating itself, I easily slipped the hoodie off and tied it around my waist and hiked up the arms of my shirt. I realize really that it doesn’t really matter how you dress so long as you have a plan to cool off as you go. Some people strip off excess disposable shirts, others just go wearing far too little and deal with the cold, personally I’d rather go wearing too much and need to remove something than go wearing too little and just be unbearably cold for the first half of the race.

As for pace, I did manage something close to my 5K pace, my chip time for the 5 mile run was 42:30, finished 71st in my age range (30-34) and in the 500’s overall. I felt that was okay given the size of the race it was a pretty massive crowd (over 7000 showed between the different events, over 1500 ranked as finishing in the 5 mile race alone). Most importantly as I went I had a distinct feeling of passing a good chunk of most of the crowd as I raced and that’s always motivating.

I burned 728 calories, definitely enough to justify the ridiculous breakfast I had afterwards. My average heart rate BPM was 175 and peak was 187 (!), definitely pushed myself a little hard just because I felt a bit of a thrill passing people. All said though I didn’t necessarily pass that many people… the race just was huge so it seemed like a lot of people as I went. Honestly the crowd size was itself a bit of a challenge to deal with just negotiating the people and maintaining a high heart rate was itself a hassle. It definitely requires a lot of sprinting back and forth to pass people on the road and maintain your pace once you realize you’re getting stuck behind a wall of slow movers.

Fun times, but it would’ve been more fun if the gym was open to do some deadlifts afterwards! Ah well I guess everyone needs a break from the rigamarole sometimes. Enjoy your Thanksgivings people!