Pequot Thanksgiving Day 5 miler

New Chip system

My lucky chip - 888

I had not run since Wednesday the 19th due to knee pain. My knee has been hurting on and off since after the marathon, but the pain on Wednesday was the most I'd felt while running. Usually it hurts more when walking, especially up and down stairs and especially the day after exercising. I did play volleyball on Monday night with no pain in my knee, but it hurt the next day and in Tuesday night's volleyball game. I went to the Thanksgiving day race with no expectations. I met up with my co-worker, Vivian, and her husband, Peter, and Allison and her father, Ted. We decided to start relatively close to the front of the pack so that we didn't get slowed down by the crowds. It was a chilly morning, but with the temperatures going into the 40s I would be fine with a short sleeved tech shirt and running skirt. My knee was hurting me before we even started to run, but I wasn't sure if it would get any worse throughout the race and slow me down. I ran the first mile in an 8:06 pace and felt pretty good, other than the knee. My breathing was good, I was happy with the temperature and the crowding wasn't too bad after the first 2 minutes or so. I ran mile 2 at a 7:53 pace and I caught up with Allison shortly thereafter. We ran together for a while until we hit the water station and she stopped to take a drink. I opted not to drink any water and continued running through. My knee was hurting, but not getting any worse so I decided to try to keep up the pace and shoot for another PR. I ran mile 3 and 4 in a 7:47 pace and mile 5 had a nice downhill finish so I was able to run it in a 7:29 pace. I finished the race in 39:00, which was an average pace of 7:48. This was indeed another PR for me with my previous best from a few weeks ago at the MADD Dash in New Haven being a 39:27.

After the race I was not able to find Allison, but did meet up with Vivian, Peter, and two other co-workers, David and Vin. We chatted for a while and considered going to Dunkin Donuts after the race for a quick bite and a drink, but opted to stay for the raffle first. This was a bad idea! The raffle took way too long with them raffling off cases of apples that were left over from the race!! Most of the tickets that were pulled were for people who had gone home already so they had to keep pulling more and more tickets to find winners who were present to claim a prize. None of us were lucky enough to win one of the decent prizes or a case of apples for that matter.

I was bummed not to see some of my other friends there, but with over 3,000 runners it's difficult to find people. Next year I'll have to come up with a specific meeting place.

Race Results:

http://www.pequotrunners.org/2008race/allages.htm

David and Vivian

Kate and Vivian

Vin and Jen