Abandoned on Turkey Day!

Again this year, Sharon and I decided to run the Lifetime Fitness Turkey Trot 5k. This is one of multiple races that takes place on Thanksgiving morning around the country (a quick Google search returns over one million results).

For this year, we invited the other residents of our building to join us. Initially the response was very positive. Some signed up to run it, some to walk it, but the total count got really quick close to 10.

Then came winter...

The forecast for Thanksgiving morning in Minneapolis called for nice clear and mostly sunny skies, low wind (13 mph) and nearly no chance of precipitation.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot... it also called for 11 degrees ("feels like -5"). That's when we started losing runners. The reasons were various, but I suspect weather was on everybody's mind, as of course was on ours.

We still decided to go for it. We dressed burqa-style and planned our run. To me, once you put so many layers a 5K didn't seem quite long enough, so I decided to add a couple of miles by running to the start (that's where I took the two pictures above with my spy cam)

Sharon opted for a drive to the start line. We decided to meet under the Hard Rock Cafe guitar. Even though we left at the same time and I had a few stops to take some shots, because of traffic, parking and the crowds, I still made it there a good 15 to 20 minutes before Sharon got to the meeting point. The clothes that seemed appropriate for running proved insufficient for standing more than 10 minutes and soon I stopped feeling my fingertips. That made taking shots with the mini camera and its mini controls so much more difficult, but still managed to get some pictures of people in turkey costume (one of the fun parts of the run).

The run itself was fun. Even with the cold weather, the crowd was so large that it took us over three minutes to get to the start line after the gun went off.

The first mile was very, very slow while swerving through the crowds, stopping to look at people and pets in costume and fidgeting with my camera with frozen fingertips.

After a mile I decided to join Sharon who after all was the only one that had joined me on this frozen morning crazy run. Here she is pictured at the run already warm enough that she had to take her gloves off (BTW, mine were on for the duration of the race, but then again, I was born in Spain, not in Iowa).

The crowd at the end was just as large and festive as it was at the beginning and soon depleted the muscle milk samples they were passing around. A major disappointment since I was really looking forward to some chocolate milk. A quick stop at Caribou Coffee on the way back home for a full rack (an off the menu variation of the Mocha where you don't have to choose between milk, white or dark chocolate, but rather have them all three) made up for the missed muscle chocolate milk in spades.