Nov. 26-Turkey Chase Race Report

Always a great start to Thanksgiving, the Bethesda Turkey Chase is a challenging but fair rolling hills course that starts on Old Georgetown Road, cuts through some neightborhoods, out to Wisconsin Avenue, before turning on Old Georgetown to the finish. I met up with Nate and we did a pre-race warm up.

About 10 or so guys were all around me from the start, and I muscled my way up right behind the leaders. I saw Karl out of the corner of my right eye move his way to the front. Colin pulled up next to me and muttered something about the course.
"Hills are in the first half right?"
"Yes." I replied.
I ran this race last year so I was familiar with the course. For some reason though it seemed a little hillier than I recall. Karl and about 5 other guys were leading the race, with me and Colin drafting behind with another guy in a black jersey. Mile 1: 5:07. We climbed up the hills. As Colin and I worked together, it seemed like I was stronger on the uphills, but he was able to surge on me going downhill. So we kept trading off for a while. Mile 2: 10:27. The lead pack was only a few meters ahead of us. We turned onto Wisconsin. Mile 3: 15:56. By now the lead started to break up, and we started gaining on one guy who was falling off. Colin and I passed him, who I think was Gareth Peters? Mile 4: 21:31. As I made my way up the last hill before turning onto Old Georgetown, I passed Colin, who immediately surged past me once we turned and ran dowhill towards Old Georgetown. He moved ahead, and I tried to hold on. I could see a few more guys in the distance who we could possibly catch. Berhanu Zeleke, who surged to the lead from the very beginning, had dropped to 5th place, so Colin and I began rearing him in. Colin put a little distance on me and passed Zeleke, who couldn't go with him. Very soon after, I began bringing Zeleke in. Mile 5: 27:02. As I came up on Zeleke with less than a mile to go, he went with me, and together we worked the final mile. However, I was also trying to lose him, because(I am pretty sure he is an Ethiopian-correct me if I am wrong though) my chance of outkicking an Ethiopian with less than a mile to go are pretty slim. Colin passed him at the right time-I was in deep trouble however. I tried to push. I surged. But he wouldn't let go. He was just toying with me. With less than 100 meters to go, he sprinted ahead and claimed the 1st age group prize-the same age group I am in.

Despite losing to Zeleke, I ran a PR on a not so PR friendly course. This is a positive sign that my running is going in the right direction. I ended up 7th overall. Which I am pretty sure about, despite the results claiming I was 8th. My time was 33:40, average 5:25 per mile pace.

I feel with a little more work and training I can get under 5:20 pace on a flat course. Perhaps I can toy with the 33:00 barrier next time. Splits below:

5:07
5:20
5:29
5:35
5:31
5:27
1:11