2012, 2010, 1999, And 1997 Ashburn Farm 10K And 5K Race Recaps

Since today is packet pick-up for the Ashburn Farm Thanksgiving Day 2K/5K/10K, I thought I’d write a recap of the previous years that Bill and I have run in this local Thanksgiving morning turkey trot.  We estimate that we’ve run the race about 10-15 times, and some of our friends have run it every year.   Originally I think they offered the 10K and a 1-mile fun run, but now they have a 10K, 5K, and 2K.  The race has grown to a pretty decent sized field of over 2,500 runners over the past twenty years.  The race is put on by the local Methodist church as a fundraiser to support needy children in Uganda.  The money goes to pay for tuition, supplies, and other school related items.

My first photo I can find from this race was taken in 1997.  I ran the 10K just five days after running the JFK 50-Mile Ultramarathon. I proudly wore my shirt, and hoped that everyone would have pity on me if I limped!

Bill didn’t run the race that year, so he was out with his camera and snapped pictures of the race.  Here are the serious (and wanna be serious) runners toeing the line just as the race started.

Bill also snapped this photo of me with my running girlfriends. That’s Susan in purple (we go way back), and two of our other friends hidden behind Susan and the girl in black. I have no idea how fast we ran this race, but it looks like we were booking! I’m inspired to contact the church and see if they still have race results from those early races since I can’t find them online!

In 1999 I placed second in my age group in the 10K with a time of 47:05 (7:34 pace). The thing that I remember about that morning was that at the starting line one of my running friends and I were talking. She mentioned that she was glad that she was older than me and that I wouldn’t be competition for her. I suspected that we were close to the same age, so I asked her when her birthday was. We were tickled to discover that we were both born on the very same day and there was only about four hours difference in our age!

In 2010, my friend Lolly ran her very first race, and I was honored to run it with her! She and I ran the 10K together in 1:00:55 (9:48 pace).

The Cruisers had a great turnout that year. Apparently, if I promise to feed them after the race, they will run!

Bill finished in front of us and and snapped a picture as we approached the finish line.  More importantly, check out the girl on the left sprinting past us.  I love her effort!

After the race, we headed back to our house for our first annual Thanksgiving morning post-race breakfast.  We serve things like muffins, crumb cake, fresh fruit, and mimosas!

It was a big hit, even though I made everyone put on the race shirts for a photo!

Last year I broke the 10K tradition and signed up to run the 5K with my friend Jessica in her very first race ever, and we finished in 40:27 (13:01 pace).  It ended up being a very good idea because we got to watch the crowd’s reaction to seeing a turkey run with us.  After the race I posted the following picture on my Facebook, and people commented that they didn’t see me, but that they had seen the turkey!

As you can tell from the picture, last year’s race was on a gorgeous day. Here’s the start of the 5K race.

We ran between two really cool balloon turkeys that marked the starting line, and we were off!

After Jessica and I crossed her very first 5K finish line, her daughter caught this awesome picture of us!

We hung around to watch some of the other runners cross the finish line, including our favorite turkey runner!

And finally, here are some of the shirts that Bill and I still have. Because they are long sleeved cotton, I don’t know if I’ve ever worn mine since I discovered technical fabrics!

 

 

• Questions:
• Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving morning race?
• Do you and your friends/family ever celebrate post-race with a special breakfast?
• Do you have a favorite repeat race that you run?