San Dimas Turkey Trot 10K and The Blind Side

Last Saturday was the San Dimas Turkey Trot.  I had decided to run in this race because I've been itching to get out and do another 10K just to make sure I'm improving and I figured I would do this in place of my scheduled long run for the week which was supposed to only be 8 miles anyway. 

I woke up pretty early because I was pretty excited to finally get to participate in a race again.  The last one I had done was the Disneyland half marathon in September but the last 10K I had done was back in May.  I got dressed, got my Garmin and iPhone ready, did a little bit of stretching, had a small bowl of granola and non-fat milk, and before I knew it, I was on the road heading to Bonelli Park,  the location for this turkey trot.  I had also made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I knew I might get a little hungry since I was going to be there pretty early.

So it's just a little past 6am and I'm already heading to San Dimas.   The park isn't that far from my house (maybe about a 15-20 minute drive) so I was there well before 6:30am.   Anytime I'm not familiar with a place I'm going to, I tend to get there super early just because I'd rather be really early than stressing out and rushing.   Another reason was that I missed the cutoff time for online registration so I knew I'd have to do late registration there.

I pull up to the gate at the entrance to Bonelli Park, pay the $10 parking fee (I hate parking fees!), and start driving off.  I soon realize that I forgot to ask the person at the gate where the actual turkey trot was.  I figured there would be signs or at least somebody there to direct me but after driving for a couple minutes and seeing a bunch of empty parking lots, I decided to turn around and go back to ask for directions.   I get back and find out I was supposed to make the first left turn right as I entered the park.   As I pull up to the parking lot, I see a few cars, a few other runners walking around trying to keep warm, and the lights and tents from the registration area just below the parking lot area.  I walked down and filled out a late registration card, paid the registration fee, got my goody bag and t-shirt, and headed back to my car to put all the stuff away.  It's about 6:30am and I have my time chip tied to my shoes and my bib pinned to my shirt.  Now, what the heck do I do?!?  The race is scheduled to start at 8am.  I know for next time, I can easily take my time getting there since it's a much smaller race than the other ones I've been part of.  All the other previous races I've done have always had thousands of runners whereas this one had a total of 167 runners for the 10K (and another 161 runners for the 5K).

I head back down to the registration area to kill some time and look around.  There is one retail tent for gypsyrunner.com and I check out the Spibelt which I ended up buying later on for my wife.  There was one other tent that had a bunch of flyers and pamphlets for other upcoming races as well as some t-shirts for sale.  Other than that, not much else.

 

Down by the registration area.  Gypsyrunner.com tent is on the left.  Volunteers on the right side cutting up pumpkin pie for after the race.

 

The start (and finish) line

 

Map of the 10K route

Okay, fast forward an hour later.   The race director is on the mic and mentions that there is a stream crossing on the 10K route.  He explains that the stream is normally about a couple inches high (I think, "Cool, that's not too bad") but then shortly afterwards mentioned that it was actually about 1.5 foot high today.  Nice.

I didn't care too much about my shoes getting wet but didn't really like the idea of having to run in wet socks after that crossing.  The race director also mentioned that anybody wanting to back out of the 10K and do the 5K instead would have that option because some runners expressed concern over getting their shoes wet.  I didn't care, I was ready to do the 10K no matter what so that wasn't an option for me.

 

Anxiously waiting for the start of the race

The 5K started at 8am and the 10K started 10 minutes later.   After the 5K started, the 10K runners started slowly filing into the starting chute.  I didn't go too close to the front because I didn't want to get caught up in the starting frenzy and go out too fast.  As it got closer to 8:10am, I watch the clock up at the front as it started to tick closer to 10:00....9:50, 9:51, 9:52.  I was waiting to hear some kind of countdown or something but all of a sudden I just remember hearing the air horn blast and everybody just started running.

I knew I wanted to keep the first mile at around a 10:00/mile pace because that's what I normally run and then I could go from there.  My main goal was to beat my previous 10K time so I wasn't worried about trying to race against anybody other than myself.  As I started out along the route and just trying to "go with the flow", I checked my pace and I was going at a 9 minute mile which, for me, is too fast.  I settle down and find my groove and watch more people pass and see the big pack of people go off in the distance.

Sometime after mile 2, we head into the first dirt trail portion of the race with a pretty good incline.  It soon started descending down and we were then on pavement again going along the lake.  It was nice, pretty quiet, and scenery was beautiful.  Pretty soon, we were all back on dirt trails again.

After mile 3, the stream finally came up.  It was pretty muddy and slippery so I had to take my time getting up to the stream.  Three other runners were there and I saw them head upstream and stepping on some rocks to get across.  I decided I'd do that too.  Now, I'm across the stream with muddy shoes (but fairly dry socks!).

Mile 4 went along a road that had a view of the nearby airport which then doubled back along the same road.  I remember another uphill portion after this that seemed to go on forever.  I just kept thinking to myself, "Keep moving, keep moving" and was also glad that I had been including some hills on my running routes recently.   This definitely made it a little easier for me.   If I had done this route last May, I would've had to walk this portion of the race for sure.

I catch up to my friend, Merv, at about the 5.7 mile mark and he asked me if we still had a chance to make it under an hour.  I looked at my watch and we were at about 55 minutes with about .5 mile to go.  I tell Merv we have 5 minutes and we start to pick up our pace.  As I rounded the last turn towards the finish line, I looked at my watch and it showed 00:59:47.   I sprinted towards the finish line and stopped my watch right at 1:00:00.   My official finish time was 1:00:34.   Not sure why I was off by so much between my own time and the official time.  Nonetheless, I was pretty happy to have beaten my previous time by a good 6 minutes!  Next time, I definitely will get it under an hour.

Final split times:

mile 1 - 10:00

mile 2 - 9:37

mile 3 - 9:57

mile 4 - 9:32

mile 5 - 9:31

mile 6 - 9:16

last 0.2 - 7:52

 

Ran into friend of mine, Mervin, and his brother Glenn.  Here we wait for the 10K awards.  Glenn actually placed 3rd in his age group.  This was his first 10K too.  Nice job Glenn!

View of Puddingstone Lake from the starting area

Later in the day, I got to watch The Blind Side with my wife.   I really enjoyed it and was impressed with the acting and good balance of story with some football action.  The pace of the movie was good and I never once felt any lull in the story.  One surefire way I knew it was good was that I didn't fall asleep even for one second during this movie.  Since we had watched it AFTER eating lunch and the fact that I had woken up pretty early that morning AND ran a 10K, I would definitely have fallen asleep if it had just been a little bit boring or slow.  I felt pretty satisfied with the movie and would recommend it highly.

All in all...a great day!