On Thanksgiving, I ran the 25th Annual Gobble Wobble at Buhl Farm Park in Hermitage, PA to benefit the Shenango Nature Conservancy. We ran this race for the first time last year, and we really enjoyed the course. It's a bit challenging for a 5K road race as there is a nice hill around the 2.5 mile mark and some smaller inclines thrown in throughout. Since we were still in pretty good shape from the marathon, both of us were looking at trying to place in our age groups. It seemed doable given how we ran last year and our knowledge of the course. We got a cute long sleeve cotton tee as a race premium. There was some confusion at the beginning as to exactly where the starting line was. This caused some anxiety because the start is not chipped so your time starts when the gun starts. With 1500 runners, if you are going for an age group award, you need to get out front. So I shove my way to the front with a bunch of 15 year old cross country kids and some fools with their shirts off. The horn goes off, and I take off. I ran a 7:25 first mile and was feeling pretty good. I held onto a pace somewhere in the 8's for the next mile. The hill was a struggle since I had been keeping some pretty good paces. I was trying to judge the other people who would pass me occasionally to make sure that they weren't women in my age group. Teenage girls in sports bras can fly right past me. I'm not competing against them. Mom looking women, I will be hunting down. I only noticed one woman who looked to be my age pass me so I knew I was near the top, but I was afraid that maybe some speedy ones had gotten out ahead of me early. I crossed the line with a final sprint to duck in at 24:59. I was elated to be sub-25, but I wasn't so sure about an award. We debated about staying for the awards or heading out to Starbucks. We decided to stick around for a little while. We browsed the commemorative t-shirt display,
and then they put the results out on a picnic table. I ran over to look and saw a 3 next to my name. I had to have some teenager double check to make sure that I was reading it right.
Then I let out a little whoop and did a happy dance because I got 3rd in my age group. I was thrilled to get my first age group award.
It was even better because JD won his age group so we both got awesome medals.
Overall a good running day with lots to be thankful for.
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