Prospect Park Track Club/Bishop Ford HS 5M Turkey Trot

Race was Thanksgiving day at 9am, we got to Staten Island later than usual on Wednesday due to all the things I wanted done before we left, got in at 10pm the last family got in at 11pm and with all the catching up going on, I finally left everybody and went to sleep around 1am. The trip to NY is part of my husband twice a year get together with his cousins and brother, all together there was 17 of us in the house.

I woke on Thanksgiving morning quite refresh and everyone was still fast asleep, so change into my running gear and tipped toe downstairs to find some bread and peanut butter but gave up on the PB and had dry toast, mixed some diluted OJ and headed off to Brooklyn for the race. I ended up wearing capri and a long sleeve shirt because it really wasn't as cold as I was expecting and there was no snow.

I had no problem finding the park but didn't realize how big it was, it even had a zoo, this park is truly a gem in the middle of the city. Found a place to park but it was a good 10 mins walk to the start, walked 5 mins and ran 5 mins to warm up, picked up my race number and realized we got a bag instead of a tee shirt, the bag is really very nice, truly designed for an athlete with little pockets to make sure things are easy to find. Checked in the bag and went over to use the porta porty but decided again it, not sure why. Last year bag was a whole different design, some people had them for gear check-in.

by the entrace I came in

Around the park

We started promtly at 9am and off we went, this race was very crowdy, basicaly walked the first 2 mins, just no place to move. The whole park was closed to traffic so we stayed on the the road doing a 2 miles loop and then a 3 mile loop, one was upper and the lower can't remeber. The goal for this race was just to finish and not do any additional damage to my left hip/leg but I felt great throughout the run and picked it up towards the end hoping for about a 10 min/mile pace but I knew it was going to be hard since mile 1 took over 11 mins.

In the front is a paced track for running and behind is for trail running or horses.

I skipped the first water stop but stopped at the second because I was very thirsty and realized I never drank of the diluted OJ. I was quite surprise when mile 4 came around, I was still feeling great with very minimal pain so pushed a bit and started passing people, which was an interesting experience for me I really expected to bunk before the mile was up but it never happend and was quite surpise when I started hearing Santa's jingle that I was almost done.

Across from the park.

Crossed the finished line, got my timing chip taken off grabbed my medal and went in search of food. Picked up my bag from check in, grabbed a bagel and a cup of hot chocolate, waited around to see some people come and had to leave since we had a lot of cooking to do before guest started arriving. When I got back the family was just waking up and all were quite surprise I got up to do the race and was back already, my brother-inlaw actually felt inspired that he went out and ran for an hour.

So final result 828/1290

Time: 50:06.30

Pace: 10:01.3, a little shy of my goal but I am happy with it.

The race was very well organize and I liked the fact that the kids were heavily involved in the whole thing; water stop , mile time call out, chip removal, medal and cleanup. Hoping to make it a tradition whenever NY is picked for Thanksgiving. Oh, the bad things it is a $10 toll to get back into Staten Island from Brooklyn that was a shocker, luckily I had money on me.