Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Oceanside Turkey Trot 5K Race Recap

I left off yesterday with the finish of the Oceanside Turkey Trot 5-Miler. The race organizers made the starting times for the two races far enough apart so if you wanted, you would be able to COMBO and run both the 5-Miler and the 5K, which is exactly what I did.

After grabbing my medal and goodies, Ryan and I headed back to the car for a quick costume change (he was playing my professional photographer during the 5-Miler, so he also had to change into his running gear). Since the 5K would be more of a "trot" compared to the 5-Miler (meaning I wasn't doing it for time and was planning on just having fun with the hubby), I knew my costume could be a little crazier... When I saw the TURKEY HATS at Target a couple months back I KNEW it had to be part of my outfit.

Racing Outfit includes: Brooks Ghost 6PRO Compression Marathon Socks (neon orange), Sparkle Athletic Skirt (brown), Target Turkey Hat, Garmin Forerunner 110Road ID Wrist ID Sport (red), Hunter Orange Gloves (from the Dollar Store), and Target Sunnies (pink). Also, timing chip for my shoe.

With the 5-Miler starting at 7:00am and the 5K starting at 8:20am, we had about 40 minutes to get from the finish line to the car, change, take a couple quick pictures, and get back to the starting line - perfect!

This turkey was ready to trot!

Check out my TAIL FEATHERS :)

Tried to forget about my earlier disappointing race
as to not let it ruin the 5K with the hubby!

If you've met Ryan, you know he is the crazy, creative one...
How is it that our running outfits never relay that?! ;)

As with the 5-Miler, the 5K was more of a self seeding start (NOT my favorite). They did have up signs with mile pace for the different corrals, but I would have to say the majority of folks did not pay attention to them... We seeded properly (in the 9-10 minute mile group) and ended up being in the 4th wave. (There were LOTS of folks walking by the time we started... one thing I dislike about a lack of timed corrals... OH THE WEAVING!)


The temperatures were QUICKLY rising. Although it was in the 40s when the 5-Miler started, it was already in the 60s by the time the 5K got under way. I kept on my gloves, mostly because I thought they went with my outfit (it is all about the fashion and my costume, #AmIRightOrAmIRight?!), but by mid-race I knew the hat and gloves may have been a bad idea.

There was a gentleman flinging fire about
on the course - pretty fun to see!

Ryan hadn't run since the Avengers Half last month because he was in Hawaii for working art directing a photo shoot. We decided to take the run nice and easy (I may have even been texting with Pavement Runner a bit while trotting along during the race). We said we would try to shoot to be around 30 minutes, but I knew 10 minute miles was normally Ryan's race pace and we may need to dial it back a little.

I really like the course. You get to see the ocean for at least half of it, and Downtown Oceanside is starting to come around too, so it is a great place to race. There were a ton of spectators throughout the course with high energy, which is always fun. The race is definitely family friendly and encourages everyone to MOVE YOUR FEET BEFORE YOU EAT. (Although if I am being completely honest I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the lack of costumes this year...)

Ryan and I having a grand ol' time
about 2 miles into the race.

We were keeping great time - around 9:45-10:00 minute mile pace for the first two miles. Ryan knew we were getting towards the end and I asked him if he wanted to speed up a bit. He nodded so we started kicking it in a little faster. Once we hit the Strand we knew we had less than a half mile left and gave it a little extra gusto.

The photographer yelled "HEY TURKEY LADY"
right before this shot!

Trotting in to the finish line!

Haha, not sure if you can tell, but I
swear Ryan sometimes enjoys running with me ;)


Our official finish time was at 28:47, which averages to 9:15 per mile - not too shabby (my watch even had us around 6:10 mile pace for the last tenth of a mile). That was good enough for us to finish in the top 1075 runners out of 6044 finishers!

Source

Source

We grabbed a couple pictures, some yummy goodies (the apples were DELICIOUS!), and made our way back to the car.

Under the pier after we finished the 5K.

On the way back to the car we had someone
take a quick picture of us.

We tried QUITE A FEW TIMES to get a jumping photo, but were using the self timer on the top of the car and it wasn't really working out (I even got hit in the face a couple times with my medal), but I guess we got one decent shot ;)

Made sure to hold my medal for THIS shot!

Afterwards we drove home and picked up the pup so we could take him to the local school to let him run around. There were a couple of football games going on (LOVE that everyone was being so active before stuffing their faces ;)) and tons of people around. I almost forgot how crazy I looked until someone said "Ohhhhhh, I get it, you were at the race this morning...". OOPS! Maybe I should have left the turkey hat in the car...

Of course Walt is too cool to look at the camera ;)

Just like with the 5-Miler, I will definitely make sure this is on my calendar for future years that we are in Oceanside for Thanksgiving. And next time I will try a little harder to have Ryan dress up with me... Maybe we could go as GIANT TURKEY LEGS (like the nasty ones people eat at Disneyland) or a fork and knife...

HAHAHA! And just before I was getting ready to post this I got an email from the Oceanside Turkey Trot about taking a survey and a Post Race Costume Contest... AND GUESS WHO'S PICTURE THEY USED IN THE EMAIL?!

Ummmmm.... I THINK I KNOW HER!!

YOURS TRULY!!

Do you make it a habit to move your feet before you eat? 

2 comments:

Fairytales and Fitness said...

What a great Turkey trot outfit. Great job to the both of you!

KookyRunner said...

That last photo is awesome!

I really love turkey trots. This year was my 3rd year in a row doing the local turkey trot 5k. It feels good to get in a good run before indulging in #allthefood.