Three fellow co-workers and I paid to get up before the sun, drive to Dana Point’s coastal breezy 40-some degree weather and run 6.2 miles this past Thursday. It seemed like a good idea at the time. What started as an enthusiastic but dreamful suggestion from our office manager to assemble a team to run Dana Point’s annual Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 10k turned into a blast e-mail, was picked up by the staff fitness and running aficionados and turned into a reality within a few hours.
Loving the idea, I was the initial communication behind it. I had never run a race before, but I do boxing and had plenty confidence in my ability to finish a 10k. Hitting a bag for an hour seemed physiologically analogous to a light jog for the same amount of time. Besides, I had made November “community service month” and needed something solid for the last week that didn’t have to do with food distribution (which I had done twice already earlier this month). Running a 10k that benefited the Second Harvest Food Bank seemed appropriate and made me feel better about the obscene amount of over-eating that would commence shortly thereafter.
When my alarm went off at five o’clock I was only mildly annoyed considering my sister, home for the holiday, decided to start singing show tunes at 1:30 a.m. in the room next to mine and my Dad somehow managed to sleep through the living room television blasting the theme song of MASH at an hour I can no longer coherently recall. A nice warm shower perked me up but stepping outside and taking a breathe of piercingly cold air woke me up all the way. We rendezvoused at my house a few minutes before six o’clock and started our drive to Dana Point Harbor.
The sun was waking up about the same time we arrived and I had been given strict orders in the car to interrupt any awkward conversations that could theoretically arise from other running acquaintances that could show up to the race, but I was a little more concerned with getting the feeling back in my fingertips. Walking to the starting line we were greeted by one of those morning people who were all too happy to speak into a microphone and keep the crowd entertained for hours. Leaving our swag bags, sweatshirts, warm up pants and any other shred of additional warmth with our office manager’s husband, we began to warm up. They stretched their calves, I threw some 1-2-slip-slip combinations… I hadn’t actually been running in two weeks.
We put ourselves in the third wave of the race, accidentally clustering ourselves with parents pushing strollers, people dressed as pilgrims and the elderly. So naturally the first mile and a half of the race involved a lot of darting, weaving, dodging, passing and getting nicked on the heels by stroller wheels. I managed to regain feeling in my fingertips by the mile two sign and once we spread out, I really started enjoying myself. The sun was out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, I could no longer see my own breath taunting me, the lady dressed as a turkey seemed quite hilarious now and my pugilistic-based, cardiovascular conditioning was serving me very well. The rest of the race was smooth and pleasant and what more, they had delicious pumpkin muffins and water waiting for us at the finish line. I felt quite accomplished when I realized it wasn’t even 9 a.m.
I tried looking up how much the event raised. I couldn’t find it. But I know there were at least a few thousand people there who each paid $40 (or so) to run. The 2008 Turkey Trot raised over $40,000 and I imagine this year was at the very least comparable. And once the initial abrasions were over, it was really a lot of fun. In fact, we decided our next stop is the Huntington Beach Half Marathon in February!
It was a great idea at the time and an even better one afterward.
