Notes
Won the Herndon Turkey Trot. I have always wanted to win this race but never have been able to. Surprisingly, in a relatively slow time, I was able to get the win. I felt pretty good about this race, having had a pretty disappointing year and a half of training since my stress fracture. I started out in a distant 6th place, but gradually moved up to the leaders, and caught them at the second mile mark. At that point, there were four people plus myself in the lead pack. Shortly after I joined, two of the leaders dropped off, and one leader surged away. I let him go, thinking that either he had waited until the 2 mile mark to run fast (and in that case I could not catch him) or it was a last-gasp effort to try to get everyone else to give up (in which case I would catch him). Fortunately, it was the latter. By about 2.25 miles into the race, I took a slight lead, though I felt 2nd place on my back for the next half mile. I surged repeatedly, hoping to break him, and was fortunately able to do so with about a quarter mile to go. I won by about four seconds, which was totally unexpected. It felt good to win in a close race like that, and this is a good starting point for my marathon training. Obviously the time was not stellar, but nevertheless, it felt good to run hard and strategically.
Jessica ran around 19:30, and placed second. She was happy with the time and place.
We won two turkeys, a $100 gift certificate to Footsteps, a seasonal decoration for Thanksgiving, and some other food and gatorade in a nice basket. We gave one of the turkeys to Sarah and Emily Thorp, who we saw at the race. We also saw Pete Sherry, Eric Jensen, and Bailey Jensen. It was good to see some friends there. Great day overall!