Yes, that's a turkey made of butter. I also highly recommend doing some of this after you've eaten your fill of turkey-shaped butter.
It only took about 3.5 hours of this
to get there from Western MA on Wednesday, which wasn't really so bad.
Onto the Talking Turkey: today I did the 6-mile local Talking Turkey race, which is billed as a "cross country" race but is in fact a very tame (and beautiful) jaunt on gravel/dirt roads around a local reservoir. Last year I ran 7:07's on average. This year I ran 7:17's. Both years I ran conservatively and then picked it up for the last 2 miles, only this year what felt like a big pickup was sort of not, apparently. I did pass a lot of people in those last 2 miles, but in hindsight perhaps that had more to do with them all dying than it did with me being all fleet of foot.
The race was a lot of fun, though. I reduced my carbon footprint by carpooling down with my friend Greg, who unbeknownst to me was ahead of me the entire race until the last 400 yards or so, when I passed him during what I thought at the time was a blistering finishing kick. I felt a little bad about that, because last year when I had a really crappy 5K, he could have passed me in the last 400 yards but didn't, because he thought it would be my emotional undoing at that point. But today he was just collateral damage as I tried to pass back some 16-year old girl with whom I'd gone back and forth about 5 times over the last mile. (Yes, I beat her in the end. But her hair looked way better than mine.)
After the race Greg and I chased down some food and found another faculty colleague who'd done the race:
If I may say so myself, we are a very sporty faculty. Then I made the mistake of leaving my camera in Greg's hands while I finished eating, and later I found these:
I am going to think of these photos the next time I hear him on NPR, explaining current events in Northern Africa.
I haven't really done any local racing this fall, so it was a lot of fun to catch up with many of my running/triathlon friends. Here I am with: Lisa, who kicked my a** in her first race longer than a 5K; Laurie, who claimed she went out too hard but did just fine anyway; and Joellen, who was the first masters woman in the race.
I really miss seeing Joellen more often, so as I was leaving, I suggested we go biking sometime, and I think she literally snorted at me. I take it she's not a big fan of the cold weather.
Here I am with Dena, while we both eat clam chowder.
I understand that, rationally, clam chowder sounds really disgusting as a post-race food choice, but even after I came as close as I have in a long time to hurling in the chute, 15 minutes later this was heaven. I just wish I'd found oyster crackers.
Also, what is up with that rogue curl in the middle of my forehead? (When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was unable to break 7's to save her freaking life.)
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