Turkey Trot

In a previous blog of mine I said that I ran two races over Thanksgiving break, but I only wrote about one of them, the Living History Farms Race. Now I am going to write about the other one that I participated in, the Turkey Trot in Dubuque Iowa. Like the Living History Farms race this was also another 7 mile race.

The two races that I ran in over the break were tortuous in their own way. In Living History Farms race you had to run through creeks, which may not seem bad but when the weather is only 40 degrees out, it gets cold and it’s hard to run if you can’t feel your legs.

The Turkey Trot for me is much harder; you are continuously going up one hill after another. About 70% of these hills that you run up are steep and stretch on forever. If you have ever drove through Dubuque and seen the hills, those are the hills that I have to run 7 miles on. This race is famous for the hills so before you sign up you kind of know what you are getting yourself into.

There is this one ginormous hill that we have to run up in the last 2 miles or so. I usually dread this hill the whole time I am running. This year, I saw a hill up ahead of me and I thought that that was ‘”The Hill”. I was feeling pretty good going up it and I was thinking “this doesn’t feel that bad”. Oh was I wrong, upon reaching the top of the hill I looked ahead and found that what I just ran up was not “The Hill” after all. There standing before my eyes was my enemy. All of my energy partially drained out of my system realizing that I had not run up “The Hill” at all. I keep on running though, and made it up the hill even though I felt that I was going to die the whole time.

I finished the race in an hour and even though it may seem like I didn’t enjoy it, I actually did. The best part of it was that I got to go back to my grandparents’ house and eat a nice big dinner.