Turkey Trot

You may remember a couple of months ago when I posted about how Derek and I had started running together in the evenings. Well, like the Petersen that he is, he was certain that our running would be more meaningful if we were working toward a goal. A goal other than breathing and making it home to an EXTRA large bowl of ice cream. I mean really, is there more?

He decided that we should run a race. I promised him that I would only run if he ran with me the whole time. He assured me he would, so I decided I would do it with him. A "friend" (Do you call people friends who ask you to join in races?) we'll call "Debbie" to protect her identity said we should run the Mesa Turkey Trot with her and her husband. So, we signed up.

Derek decided we should follow a training regime for this "race" and proceeded to find about three different ones online. Of course all of these schedules assume you'll start prepping in all seriousness about eight weeks before the race--we only had four.

Of course we committed ourselves to running every single night once we found the schedule, but five minutes later we realized that we have lives and couldn't do that, so we did the best we could. We ran three and a half miles once, 4 miles once and 5 miles once even. Mostly though we ran our two or three miles.

Since we were going to be suffering through this race, it was only fair that when Derek's brother Devin showed up, that we "invited" him to run with us. We only taunted him about not running maybe a couple of times. We were merely building his character. Never mind that he hadn't been training at all. The kid is nineteen and plays soccer every chance he gets--I was much more worried about me being carried away on a stretcher than I was about him.

Needless to say, "Debbie" almost backed out of the race the day before. However, her husband must've been building her character at their home, because she changed her mind. Other friends ran too. There was great fun had by thousands of us on Thanksgiving morning in the chilly Arizona weather.

AND??? I know you're dying to know if I completed the race. Well, I did. I ran every single step of the way--all 6.2 miles and I finished in 57 minutes and I don't know how many seconds exactly. Our mile time averaged 9:28. Not impressive if you actually do this sort of thing in all seriousness, but I was happy to be alive.

We only got one photo when we got home. And, Picasa is being annoying and saved it in some unknown place and I don't have patience to find it now. Grrr!