Sarasota Turkey Trot

Happy Thanksgiving from two turkeys!

(Turkeys doing the chicken dance. We’re a rare breed of fowl.)

Early this morning, Ryan, my sister, her boyfriend and I participated in a local turkey trot in Sarasota. We had so much fun in the race last year that we decided to sign up again and I’m so glad we did!

My sister and I reused the fun turkey hats we made last year to show our Thanksgiving spirit.

The turkey trot had both 10K and 5K course options and Ryan and I did the 10K while Leslie and Ross did the 5K. Our 10K started at 8 a.m. and we didn’t give ourselves nearly enough time to check in, attach our race bibs and line up at the starting line. Next time we’ll definitely arrive earlier because I felt a little flustered. (<—It took an awful lot of strength to withhold a pun about my turkey feathers being ruffled right there.) We started at the very back of the pack and were caught in some race congestion for the first half mile or so.

Just like last year, we ran over the huge Ringling bridge that we dubbed Mount Sarasota.

It was also rather windy, so I ran up behind Ryan to “draft” which made him laugh when he glanced over his back to see a bunch of feathers running close behind him. I’m a sneaky little gobbler.

Despite my ridiculous drafting attempts, I still felt rather sluggish during the race. Since the course was rather congested in the beginning, I started off jogging and never seemed to get the urge to pick up my pace. We took it easy and even though I scaled back my pace a bit, I still struggled through the race. I just couldn’t get into the running groove, but managed to run the whole thing and face planted into the table of orange slices after Ryan and I crossed the finish line.

We quickly met up with Leslie and Ross and enjoyed the post-race goodies before driving back to my mother-in-law’s house to shower and eat a fantastic breakfast.

My mother-in-law made a blueberry cream cheese French toast casserole with fresh fruit and we wasted no time digging in. It was a great way to kick off a wonderful Thanksgiving!