November 27, 2008

Beware the 5k Bandits!

Troy held its 61st annual Turkey Trot. Since we knew we'd be in town this year I wanted to do it but I didn't sign up for it for fear that something would go wrong and I would have to miss it even though I signed up for it. Mike didn't know if he wanted to do it or not until it was too late for early registration. So we decided to just show up, sign up and run. Well, when we got there we heard from a friend who had the same plan as we did that the organizers ran out of stuff to give day of registration signer-uppers but no one was going to stop non-registered from running. We were already there so we decided to run the race anyway.

My conscience was starting to yell at me and the crowd was really affecting me so I suggested we go home and run the 2nd Annual Run for Restless Leg Syndrome. "We find a cure when you discover a disease." (Mike, two friends and I ran 5k in the neighborhood since Red Hook, NY doesn't have its own Turkey Trot and we decided to run for restless leg syndrome- which none of us believe is real.) Mike agreed and since we had friends running in the Turkey Trot we decided to stay to watch the beginning.

While we were standing there waiting for the start we noticed all these people getting warmed up for a run. We figured they were all going to jump into the run once it had started because they couldn't register either. Why else would they be warming up? We weren't feeling so bad about the idea of jumping in after all. Mike turned to the guy next to him and asked what the guy was going to do when he got to the finish line- if he would cross it or go to the side. The guy said he was running the 10k which started later. He then asked us if we were bandits and we said, guess we are. We are bandits! We realized the other "bandits" were just waiting for the 10k to start but when the race started and I saw plenty of people running without numbers and the rest of any guilt melted away. So on we jumped!! Bandits go!

Mike and I ended up with some of our best times! I finished in 33 minutes flat and Mike did it in 26 and some change. It was really exciting! There were about 3,000 other people there and the energy was great. People were cheering all along the route and even some runners who passed me (and there were many) yelled Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I would like to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I tell you this over the Internet even more enthusiastically than I would if I passed you in a 5k. This way I wouldn't accidentally puke on you from the extra effort.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well done on the run, hon. Happy Thanksgiving!