Trotting on Turkey Day, Whew, I’m Tired!

This morning at 9am BFF and I participated in the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot. Since I hadn’t ever done it before, I had no idea what to expect.  I have to say, I was surprised that over 8000 people had signed up to take part in the run/walk.  I think it’s great that that many people decided to do something healthy on Thanksgiving morning, and the best part is, the money goes to support local charities.

The first thing we had to do was affix the technical “race chip” onto our shoes so that it could accurately measure our race time.  I was hoping for about an hour.

I had my race number and was all ready to begin.  There were thousands of people waiting in the 12+ minute line, behind all of the serious runners.  The weather couldn’t have been better: cool, overcast, and no breeze in the air.  There was a fun vibe in the air.  Lots of people with running baby strollers and dogs.  As soon as the gun went off, we were in a mass of people, all moving really slowly.  After we crossed the starting line, the crowd thinned out as some of the slower group started jogging.

BFF and I were at a fairly good walking pace the entire time, but shortly after we began, my right calf started cramping up.  I decided to push through it, because I knew I could.  We hit a bit of an incline as we went over a bridge, which actually helped my cramps quite a bit.  I guess the incline sort of stretched my muscles, which was perfect.

The crowd as we were about to begin the bridge incline

After we hit the first mile, my right leg was no longer cramped, but my toes started to become numb.  This really concerned me.  As I kept going, the numbness in my toes moved to my foot, and then to my entire leg.***  Luckily, as we neared mile 2 we got into a sort of bottleneck as we were crossing a small bridge, which forced everyone to slow down.  The slowdown helped the numbness – I guess my circulation was returning.

Mile 3 was probably the easiest because I knew it was almost the end.  My foot started to get numb again, but nothing was going to stop me.  I tried to talk about other things to take my mind off of it.  I told BFF that I wanted to be in good enough shape to enter the 10K next year, and try to run at least half of it.  She seemed skeptical as to whether or not we would be up for that challenge, but I told her it was a realistic goal to shoot for.

Our finishing time of 1:14:21 wasn’t the 1 hour I had hoped for, but it wasn’t too bad, considering the foot numbness and the bottleneck slowdown.

Tonight, 10 hours after the walk, I am tired, sore, but oh so happy that I completed the Turkey Trot.  It’s a tradition that I’m going to continue for years to come.

I’m really proud of myself for finishing the race, even under some adverse conditions.  I know that I never could have completed this walk when I was 50 pounds heavier.  So, I’ll wear this shirt as a badge of sorts of how far I’ve come:

The plan moving forward?  Beginning the Couch to 5K program over Winter Break (Christmas Vacation) and continue it for the entire 9 weeks.  I can’t wait to see how far my body will go.

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***When I told my parents about my numbness, my dad was very concerned.  He said he thought I might have a pinched nerve or something like that.  He told me he wants me to watch it, and if the numbness continues, he wants me to go to the doctor.  I will definitely keep an eye on it, because I don’t want any lasting nerve damage.

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