fitness – Page 2 – The Running Griffin

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a turkey trot, right?

The past several Thanksgivings we have headed off to Disney World in Orlando, Florida but this year decided to stay closer to home so finding a 5K the morning of Thanksgiving was a must. This was going to be a full family-affair so all four of us woke up on Thanksgiving morning and made our way to Wrentham, Massachusetts for the Turkeywacker 5K.

The race kicks off at 8:30 AM which allowed the teenagers a bit longer to sleep in before we made our way up Route 495 to Wrentham. Perhaps best known for the shopping outlets there, Wrentham is just next to the perhaps more well-known Foxboro, home of the New England Patriots!

The Turkeywacker is a trail run and certainly running on trails adds a different complexity to a race than running on asphalt. Though we had a touch of rain the days leading up to the run, the course was in very good condition with only a few spots having a couple wet patches. As you can expect with a Thanksgiving Day turkey trot, there was a sea of families at the race as parents, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents and more toed the starting line before heading off to crush copious amounts of stuffing and pie.

I felt pretty good out on the course but knew pretty early into the race that the trail run terrain coupled with more than 800 runners hitting the 5K trail course was not going to result in any sort of PR for me out on the course. But that’s not what the run was about. The run was about spending time with Mrs. Running Griffin and our two daughters and having a good time out doing something healthy together and reflecting on all that we have to be thankful for.

I finished up the Turkeywacker 5K with a time of 28:31, good for 9:10/miles. All four of us had very respectable runs and celebrated hitting up one of our favorite coffee shops on the way home to warm up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Thursday night it was off to Bristol, Rhode Island to run in the Narragansett Summer Nights 5K. Bristol is about a 55 minute drive and the race takes place on the beautiful grounds of Mt. Hope Farm.

The race kicks off at 7:30 PM and the farm area is the ideal spot for an evening road race. A nice breeze coming off the ocean helped take a bit out of the sting of the heat yesterday and the venue provides a nice, family-friendly start and finish line. The course is a moderately challenging one with some rolling hills mixed in, some part of the run being done on grass, crushed stone and other stretches on paved trails through the grounds. The heat certainly took a toll yesterday but thankfully there were two water stops on the course that came in handy. The finishing stretch is a nice, gradual uphill into the chute that definitely pushes you to get up the hill as fast as you can!

For a good duration of the race, I didn’t feel my best and had a deep pain running across my stomach. It wasn’t clear if it was muscular in nature or something else but the pain was sharp and definitely impacted my ability to run well. These things happen; you can’t run your best every day. But still, I was a bit disappointed with my running yesterday.

I finished the race with a time of 29:12, good for 9:23/miles. Certainly not my best racing of late but finishing another 5K is never anything to frown upon.

The post-race vibes are absolutely dynamite at this race. I don’t drink so the two free beer tickets weren’t for me (Pssst, Narragansett. Please come out with a non-alcoholic option) so it was more water and free pizza for me. Shoutout to Piezonis for putting out some delicious pizza that hit the spot post-run. A little live music being played as dusk was setting in; truly a perfect summer night out there!