Turkey Spin & Trot

The morning started off with a 5:00am spinning class. Stacy our wonderful instructor had asked us last week if we wanted to have class on Thanksgiving morning and we being the gluttons for punishment that we are said heck yeah!!
Stacy is a really good instructor and very funny!! she helps you forget about the pain with her funny comments.
Stacy had family in town for the Holiday so her mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to class with her. It is usually just me, Kim and Stacy so it was nice to have a couple more people.
Just because it was Thanksgiving don't think she had any mercy on us.. it was business as usual and we had an excellent workout. We always end the class with a great ab workout, sometimes that is my favorite part of the class... I wonder if it's because we are laying down???

After spinning Kim and I rushed to my house to change into our running clothes. We were meeting Cheryl and the Cabot Cruisers for the traditional "Turkey Trot".
It was REALLY cold 38 degrees to be exact and although I know it is going to get colder than this pretty soon, that is still COLD!! Oh and I forgot WINDY!!! I had on my new Asic's running pants and a long sleeve tech shirt, along with my new rebook headband ear warmer thing. It just didn't feel like enough, I had on a fleece jacket while we were waiting in the parking lot but I wasn't planning on wearing it for the run.
Lisa F "tri Lisa" started off our run with what will hopefully be a new tradtion for many years. She told us that it had been tradtion for her to run a 10K Turkey Trot in Florida for the past 15 years. Somewhere along the line she learned that she has a unique talent.. the Turkey Gooble. Good thing there were no Turkey hunters nearby!!! Cheryl you don't know what you missed! LOL

I made the decision to keep my jacket on, I knew I could always take it off and tie it around my waist later. I don't know if it was the cold, or the spinning class but my legs felt like lead pipes the whole run!! Oh I have to say how cool it was once again to see 20+ runners starting off down hwy 89.
Kim, Cheryl and I started off together and Arthur and Sarah were also with us, Arthur was telling us about getting his wife off to the airport yesterday morning. I didn't realize that we had left Cheryl and Kim behind a little bit, it was my intention to run the whole time with them so I turned back to run with them. Most of the time when I run with other people I am so interested in their conversations I kind of turn off my brain and go with the flow. Yesterday was different, I had/have a lot on my mind concerning family matters. I would be running with Kim and Cheryl and the next thing you know I'm by myself just running along and I didn't even realize it.
We also ran with Joan and Toni quite a while yesterday. I just love Joan she is such a generous person... all the Cruisers are. Anyway she was running with Toni, tomorrow will be Toni's first 10K race ever and Joan was giving her encouragment the whole way. Joan has also done this for me on numerous training runs. I wish all new runners could meet and run with Joan!! Heck all old runners too :)

It was a good run, although my legs never loosened up they made it up every hill and it was a hilly route. I felt like I redeemed myself from Tulsa on the hills, especially on the big Mount Carmel hill. The thing about the hill on Mt. Carmel is you can see it for a long time so you have plenty of time to psych yourself out before you even get to it.
There were a couple of long runs this summer that by the time I got to that hill I was already done. I remember one in particular, I had a terrible run and Michele M. was having IT band problems. We were on the last mile of a 17 mile trainng run we had stayed together for the whole run and she was trying so hard to help me get up all the hills. Normally when we got to a hill I would say you get in front of me I don't want to slow you down and then I would walk. When we got to the Mt. C hill she wouldn't let me fall behind, she made me run in front of her and she encouraged me all the way up that hill. We have run together many times since then, but it was those first couple of really hard long runs that cemented our friendship.

After the hill I could see a group of runners headed towards us on the opposite side of the road. First I saw Lisa F and a guy I don't know, believe it or not I don't know all of the Cruisers! LOL a little bit after them I saw Brenda, Jackie & Andrea. I asked if they were adding on and they said they were going back to run in the last runners which was no suprise to me. Brenda, Jackie and Andrea are awesome!!
In the end I ended up with 6.52 miles in 1:11 considering how my legs and lungs felt the whole run I don't think that is too bad. I have to admit though it was giving me doubts about tomorrow's Duck Race :( but I'm sure it will be fine.

6.52
1:11:03
10:54 avg pace
1 - 10:43
2 - 10:25
3 - 11:11
4 - 11:34
5 - 11:00
6 - 10:25
.5 - 5:44