Race Report: Mesa Turkey Trot 10k

The Mesa Turkey Trot 10k is one of the oldest races in the state of Arizona. There is also a 1 mile and 2 mile event, so lots of families, kids and strollers come out. It is not far from my house and it seems every Thanksgiving I am somewhere that morning seeing event shirts and bibs on people after they have finished. I’m told it is largest 10k race in the state, but that’s not confirmed. This year, well more specifically two days ago, I decided to sign up and finally see what all the fuss is about.

always cool to see the kids race

I’ve been racing pretty steady the last two weekends and thought a 10k would be good to work on lactate threshold and high heart rate pacing. Then I decided that I have been racing that way already, time to change things up. Instead of a road race pace, I would run there and back and run the 10k race wearing a 30lb backpack.  This would actually benefit me in some of the obstacle course racing that I do.

My goal was to just not stop running with the ruck on my back. Otherwise I thought a good pace would be around 11 minute miles, at least to start. I figured after the run there and into the later miles I would start to fill some tweaks and I would slow to shuffle step.  As I waited the last couple minutes for the run to start I did 50 body weight squats and 50 pushups with the pack on. I got some funny looks.

damn iPhone camera. I am not THAT wide

The course itself revealed nothing new to me.  As a local runner, I have put sole to pavement all over the route many times.  I realized a mile in that other than a cup of coffee, I forgot to eat breakfast and got concerned I might bonk. I had a bunch of beef jerky and energy bars in my pack, but I didn’t want to stop and pull them out. I did have a full 3L of water and sipped the tube as often as I could. I just kept going and finally ate at the finish line.

My Garmin 310 didn’t charge overnight so I ran with my Timex ironman and would figure pace splits off the mile markers along the course. As I started way back in the chute, I wasn’t sure exactly how the clock would read as hit those markers and sure enough when I saw the first mile marker with a race clock on it, they were way off. The race clock read 10:50, which felt closer to my pace so stopped looking at my watch.

I just kept plugging along feeling good. I passed a few people but people passed me too, so I started to think my pace was slipping away from me. I was able to see a mile marker and clock up ahead but couldn’t read it yet. I looked at my watch and figured based on the time and my notion that my pace was slipping back I would be coming up on mile 3. As I got closer the sign read MILE 4, and the clock read 38:08.  Whoa. I was running 9:30 miles. I was way ahead of my estimation and I felt really good. It was at that point that I realized I could break an hour with the heavy ass ruck on my back.

As I crossed the finish line, the clock read 57-something. There is an official chip time coming later, so we will see where that ultimately puts me time wise.  But I was sub 1 hour for sure and several minutes ahead of my project finish time.

I called the family to celebrate another race done and one of the kids asked, as they always do, “Did you win, daddy?”  I told them, “I did win. I was first in division, the heavy backpack division.” There was lots of cheering and laughing over that.

It’s not enough to exist. I am going to live.