Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday - there’s nothing to buy and everyone in my family more or less gets along. Low stress, good food and company make it a really pleasant day. I celebrated the way many runners choose to mark the occasion, with a Turkey Trot. This particular race was a four mile run in Huntington that was sponsored by the Super Runners Shop and benefited the Townwide Fund of Huntington. The Townwide Fund was created in 1961 by a group of Huntington residents who saw the need for an organization that could help bridge the gap between dwindling governmental support for local charities (like the Red Cross, YMCA, Hellen Keller Center) and the ever increasing needs of community residents. They are a worthwhile local charity and I encourage you to visit their website and make a donation to support their work.
In addition to the four mile race, there was a half mile “fun run” immediately preceding it. It was my sons Jack and Dimitri’s (ages 4 and 7) first running event and they tackled it with varying degrees of gusto. Dimitri tore up the course, but right before the finish line, Jack made me promise I would never make him run again, saying he thought the race should have been called the “un-fun” run since he didn’t have too much fun. I recall feeling the same way after my first marathon, so I advised him to wait a few days and he might think differently. Maybe I’ll be able to persuade him to try a Jingle Bell run if I come up with a suitable bribe.
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The race course is one of the prettiest on the Island. It started in front of the VFW hall at the corner of Mill Dam Road and New York Avenue, then headed along West Shore Road, hugging the contours of Huntington Harbor. It was a beautiful day for a race, clear and crisp, and the fall colors of the remaining leaves were vibrant against the blue backdrop of the water.
Despite being sore as heck from running the Philadelphia ½ Marathon last Sunday I still turned in a fairly decent performance in the race. I came in 238th overall and was 15/105 in my age group (40-44) with a finishing time of 30:14 (a 7:42 mile average pace). Not bad for an old guy. Of course I paid for the back to back races in the form of sore quads, hamstrings and a tweaked lower back, but I felt much less guilty taking an extra helping or two of the stuffing later that afternoon.
