Yesterday morning it was off to Marlborough, Massachusetts for a little post-Thanksgiving run at the Fast Five Turkey Trot. Organized by the Highland City Striders, this race features a ten miler and a five miler option that both kick off at the same time and split off partway through the five mile course.

The race registration fee is each runner needs to bring fifteen (15) non-perishable food items to the starting line for their race entry; I couldn’t love this any more! With more than 200 runners hitting the starting line of the race, the race organizers stuffed three vehicles full of food to be donated to the local food banks at the Hudson Food Pantry and Marlborough Community Cupboard! 1.5 tons of food donated thanks to all the runners yesterday; awesome!

Mrs. Running Griffin and I decided to run the five miler together and stuck with each other during the run. This was more of a fun run sort of thing for us so never a bad thing to go out for a run with your significant other and have a nice workout!

The course was beautiful for the five miler and featured almost all residential roads with some fall foliage still gracing some of the trees but the transition between fall to winter fully in flight. There were even a few flurries in the final mile of the race that added to the winter feel. If you like hills, well, this course is a good one for you to check out in future years as there was a good amount of climbing throughout the five mile course. Not just rolling hills, either, but instead some rollers mixed with larger, more significant inclines along the way. It certainly felt like you were climbing more than descending but we both really enjoyed the route.

We finished the race with a time of 53:50, good for 10:46/miles.

Post-run we made our way to one of our favorite coffee shops Lost Shoe Brewing & Roasting Company and enjoyed some nice warm coffee to warm us up post-run and grabbed a bag of beans and their non-alcoholic hop water to head home with, as well!