Made it to the Turkey Trot this morning run by my gym. It’s my fourth year in the area, and I’ve never made it before.

I was ready for rain, snow, cold… what I wasn’t ready for was steady wind of 20 – 30 miles per hour, gusts of 30 – 40 mph. And yeah, it really affected all of us out there.

I can’t believe this race is one town over… listening to the description of the race course by the gym director, I had no idea where I was going, but he promised it was really well marked. He kept mentioning this new, undeveloped cul-de-sac.

There were probably 30 of us. The 5Kers started outside the track at the same time the kids 1 mile run and adults 1 mile walk started on the track. The kids 1 mile walk was so cute. And I’m so impressed that the employees at my gym watch the kids after they finish the run if their parents are both doing the 5K.

This is a really small community. Our entire little valley is probably a total of 9,000 people, and there aren’t a lot of runners. So I thought I had a chance to finish pretty high in my 19+ age group.

Right off the start, I knew I wasn’t going to be first. Out of the 9 or 10 women who were obviously over 19, one of them took right off, and another one hung out just out of my reach (about 250 feet ahead) the entire time. I tried to catch her several times, but this brings me back to the wind.

At one point, one of the guys I was running in a group with had a ear muff (one that attaches over his ear – no headband) actually blow off his ear! I ran to grab it since I was the closest. (He informed me afterward I should remove 10 seconds from my time for running after his ear muff). Afterward, the top under-18 boy said his beanie actually blew off twice…his beanie! And I as got to the point where I could see the undeveloped cul-de-sac, I got hit with blasts of wind so hard that I didn’t actually move forward when my legs moved in that direction. It was really quite fun, and we all had a good laugh about it afterward.

So, second place in all events got a pumpkin pie; first place got a turkey. Being that I came in third, I didn’t. But that’s okay, I was so impressed with the kids’ races that I didn’t matter. In the 1 mile run, the first and second boys finished in something like 7:39 and 8:15. They were 8 years old! I’m looking for a strong cross-country team in my little community in about 8 years.

I have another Turkey Trot on Thursday morning (3.4 miles… a guaranteed PR), and I’m quite excited about that, too!