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Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot - Run5k


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San Jose, California
United States
Buzzword Productions
Overcast
Total Time = 38m 18s
Overall Rank = 1469/3875
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 175/559
Pre-race routine:

Had a banana and some raisin bread in the car on the way about an hour fifteen before the start.
Event warmup:

Stood around texting and updating Facebook with my Blackberry :-).
Run
  • 38m 18s
  • 3.18 miles
  • 12m 02s  min/mile
Comments:

I jogged more than I expected to since I've been so out of shape for about a year. My comments about the race (and my time) are below.
What would you do differently?:

Nothing. Next year I'll have trained more solidly but this year, I did just fine for my fitness level.
Post race
Warm down:

Walked around to p/u t-shirt, goodie bag, etc.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Besides my lack of training, the many many people I had to zig zag around.

Event comments:

I'll start with the good. It started at 9am so my morning was leisurely which I LOVED. Those 7am start times can be difficult for me. And when they say it started at nine, I looked at my watch when I heard the gun go off and it was 9:00:15am. Impressive! There was a huge amount of volunteers lining the route, putting together goodie bags, manning the banana stations. They police presence and road closures were terrific. The brief portion along the river trail was rather nice. The goodie bags were great, I've never seen a larger mountain of bananas in my life, and there was plenty of water and nutrition bars available when I was through. The turnaround for the 5k was well marked. Overall, it was a nice race.

The bad--I can't fault the race organizers for this. There were 5 'corrals' you placed yourself into and people did NOT seed themselves well. I spent two miles fighting my way around dogs, strollers, 3 year olds, and walkers that had clearly placed themselves in the 7 to 10 minute mile sectors even though most of them should have been in the 12-15 minute mile sectors. I zigged and zagged back and forth and jogged in place farther and longer then I would have liked to. This was clearly a casual family event and not a race. It wasn't a place to plan on a PR. I didn't hope for a PR, but I did assume I'd have a better time then I would have if it were just a solo training run. That was not to be the case. Along these lines, I felt badly for the 10k folks that were hoping to place. They folded into us 5kers as we turned onto the river trail, which was very narrow. The whole "slow keeps to the right" concept was totally lost on too many of the strollers, walkers, and little kids and those guys had to fight and weave at a place in their race that ordinarily, they don't.

Bottom line is, I'm slow and _I_ was annoyed at the hold-ups. I'll do the race again next year. It was a nice race with lots of support and now that I understand the situation, I'm in! I feel like a Scrooge bitching about all the families, I'm thrilled that people are teaching their kids fitness and including them in activities, but I just wasn't prepared to shove through since I seeded myself appropriately. Next time, my expectations are set.




Last updated: 2008-11-27 12:00 AM
Running
00:38:18 | 03.18 miles | 12m 02s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/559
Overall: 0/3875
Performance: Average
Course: Fairly flat, a couple of little rollers. Small portion was along the river trail.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 4

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2008-11-27 2:47 PM

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Subject: Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot
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