God help me...

Yep I signed up for a life changing experience today....well ok...maybe not too life changing. I didn't join the Navy, I signed up for the Manchester Thanksgiving day Road Race for the second straight year. My run training has been scant as I've had life stress on max overload for the last couple a weeks with a pretty ugly head cold thrown in for good measure. But this weekend I managed to get back on track and have cranked out about 19 run miles in 4 days. Thursday's race isn't anything too big to worry about it's only about 4 miles and change, but I would like to defend my sub 35 min seed card. Yes this race is hardcore as there are over 11,000 entries and they have to seed anybody planning to run sub-45 minutes to try to avoid traffic jams and twisted ankles. The race ( like any big event.) caters to ultra professionals, to weekend warriors to complete psychos running in wacky costumes. Like the reflector wearing saftey man, and more guys and gals in skivies and body paint than I'd care to count. Thankfully the weather looks to be warmer this year so I'm not really upset at Josie for twisting my arm into doing this race. Up until last Thursday I wasn't planning on it I was just about to toss my seed card and entry form on to a pile of used kleenex when I got the text along the lines of "dude you're running Manchester." So tonight we drove out there braving the terrible log jam that is the I-84, I-91 merge through downtown Hartford and got out to the race site after sitting in traffic for 45 minutes the 2 seconds it took to register and leave felt, well, kinda anti-climatic...especially compared to last year's last second mad dash to enter the night before Thanksgiving. So I'm in and if any one of you lives in Connecticut tune your TV to Fox 61 at about 9AM you might catch a glimpse of me waving into a TV camera like a doofus ( as the TV stage is set up right where the 35 min and under corral is.) I think I'm also going to shout out a request to those bag pipers at mile 2 I hope they can play Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" because let's face it Scotland Brave is soooo over done...

The Turkey Trotter
R.D.