The Buffalo YMCA Turkey Trot -  14,000 runners, joggers, walkers, and assorted crazies rolled into an 8K point-to-point ending downtown.

Last year I lined up way too late after needing to hit the porta-potties multiple times, and ended up several thousand people deep, taking nearly 5 minutes to cross the start line.  So instead, this year I purposely drank only a few gulps of tea at breakfast, parked downtown, and queued up for the shuttle buses to the start.  Got the single seat in the back (YES!) and was quite comfortable in my throw-away hoodie obtained the night before at a thrift shop.

After a very short warmup and the customary shoe adjustments, I got into the corral with 20 minutes to go and just kept edging through throngs of people.  News reporters, human centipedes, shirtless guys playing saxophones on a 38 degree morning -- it was all there and more.  Found the first pace flag, which was 6:00, and left the hoodie on a barricade. Finally the gridlock took over, and there were still hundreds of people in front of me who would not be running 6 minute splits.

Once we finally started, I got across the mat in only 10 seconds!  Traffic was heavy and I followed any blocker I could, dancing through gaps like Barry Sanders.  There was a sarcastically yelled "look at that guy go!".. ok whatever dude, this is a race.  GTFOMW.

By about a half mile, there was finally some room to zoom, and the one-mile flag brought a split reading in the 5:45 range.  Way better than I had expected.  A high school kid sounded truly disappointed as he said "so much for top 100" with the exact same notion already in my mind.  But I thought to myself, "there are still 4 miles, just run your race".

Miles 2 and 3 felt slow. My legs didn't want to turn over briskly and still didn't feel loose.  But I just kept trying to dig, and by 3.5, had passed a few familiar racers with the speed to beat me on any particular day.  At the 4 mile flag, I was finally starting to feel loose but held back just a little -- there is only one turn on this course and it's a perfect distance from the finish line to start building a final kick.  Turned the corner, went into an ugly heel-striking, ground-covering thing for about 100 meters, and then dropped the hammer as soon as I could read the clock and saw that sub-30 was doable.  Lighting it up that hard at the end probably indicates that I ran a bad race and was too conservative, but it sure was fun.  And it got me into the top 100, barely. 

Then it was time to watch the race.  Guys jogging with full sized canoes in portage mode get my vote as the most outrageous.  And my sister ran this year, which was very cool.  So I didn't get an AG award but did make my B and C goals of top 100 and sub-30:00.  Next year I plan to get within the first 3 rows of runners -- that should keep me out of the way of the blazing fast 5:00 guys, but ahead of people who shouldn't be up front.

Wow! That's a lot of friggin people at a turkey trot! Sorry you missed out an an AG award, but holy cow you are fast, sir! Funny that I just posted about my sub-30 turkey trot too. Granted, mine was a 5k and yours was an 8k. Sick man, sick! Congrats on a great race!!

That is a fast time. How old are you.

Nice job!

Wow, you are fast. Top 100 out of 14000 - congratulations!

Nice job and placing!

Awesome job!  I can't even imagine running in a race that large, and to get into the top 100 even!  Congratulations!  So cool that your sister also ran.

You finished in the top 100 out of 14,000 runners and ran sub-30:00????  WOW, Jay!  You are just so fun to watch train and race with your crazy speed.  I can't even wrap my head around that kind of speed!  Congratulations on running a fantastic race!!