I love doing a race on Thanksgiving morning--it's a good time to reflect on what I'm thankful for, and counteract some of the gazillion calories I'll consume later. For those reasons, my friends have made it somewhat of a tradition to do a Thanksgiving morning run. The past few years I did the Clark County Turkey Trot, but after seeing the MASSIVE Turkeython medals, I decided to mix it up this year! And I had a BLAST running Uberthon's 2013 Turkeython.
I really like Turkeython for several reasons:
In addition to your bib that has your number and timing chip on it, everyone received an extra bib that said "I am thankful for ______ " and runners were encouraged to fill it out and put it on their backs. Mine said: "I am thankful for my best friend who is running Turkeython with me... and beer."
- It benefits Providence Children's Health, Doernbecher Children's Hospital and Portland Rescue Mission--three great local charities.
- It has events for everyone--10k and 5k runs, 2.5k walk/run, kids races, and family and student 10k relays.
- It's a good value --the entry fees remained constant, regardless of how close it was to the race date, and the $35 10k fee included a chip timed race, a good quality medal, and tons of post race goodies, including muffins, coffee, cocoa, apples, oranges, Larabars, and Fuel100 Electro-Bytes.
- Although an event shirt wasn't included in the registration fee, they were CHEAP. The long sleeved, tech t-shirt for the event for only $5 if you pre-ordered with your registration, or for $8 if you purchased it at packet pickup or the day of the race).
- They had three days of packet pickup. (Although none of the JC Penney employees knew that packet pickup was going on, and the Uberthons website wasn't super clear about WHERE exactly it would be within JC Penney, I did eventually find it!)
- There was tons of parking (so no need for bag check).
- Although I had originally been worried that the 2.5k loop course would be boring and overly crowded, it was actually fun! It was seeing volunteers and spectators over and over again, and even with about 1000 participants, the course was fast and fairly flat--I actually got a PR, which I hadn't expected due to the expected number of participants, past experience at Halloweenathon, and the fact that my running has been SLOW lately.
- Race photos are only $5 each... unfortunately I didn't see any really worth buying :(
In addition to your bib that has your number and timing chip on it, everyone received an extra bib that said "I am thankful for ______ " and runners were encouraged to fill it out and put it on their backs. Mine said: "I am thankful for my best friend who is running Turkeython with me... and beer."
Me and my BFF!!!
It's a really great race, and while it was cold, we still had a good time! I'm looking forward to doing this again next year :) From pre-race to race to post-race, it was fairly well done.
Did you get in a workout on Thanksgiving?
Did you get in a workout on Thanksgiving?
