FALL PLANNING: TURKEY TROT TRAINING

Looking backward at and forward to summer and fall races of 2018. Taken by PKSenagore August 16, 2018. All rights reserved.

THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING DAY IS ABOUT 13 WEEKS from today. If you hope to run or walk your very first 5K or other distance race on the holiday weekend, it’s time to start planning. Or, if traveling home, you’d like to beat your cousin who perennially has bragging rights to the best finish time. Possibly there’s a certain someone who might be at the race and you would like to show good running form and an possibly improved body form.
 
Perhaps you don’t intend to spend 12 weeks in training. Jeff Galloway wrote an article that promises to get those who are already running as little as 1-2 times per week in shape in 5-6 weeks. However, if you wish to build some wiggle room into a training schedule to accommodate travel, vacation time, crunch time at work, or an illness, an extra week or so will need to be added to an 8 or 10-week program.
 
Need a bit of inspiration to commit? In the autumn of 2016 Lydia Estes, a student at Wofford College, wrote a charming article, for Oddysseyonline.com, “10 Reasons Why You Should Run In Your Town’s Turkey Trot.”  You don’t need to be a college freshman to relate to the experience she described as a participant in the local community Turkey Trot.  It was so refreshing to see that the expected reason at the top of most such lists, being able to eat an extra serving of pumpkin pie or other favorite food at Thanksgiving dinner, was last. 
 
What if there is no local race that you and your loved or liked ones can join as walkers or runners? Create your own. This is one reason why Earned Runs provides free bibs and resources for training. Request bibs now; they’ll help motivate you to take action. 
 
I am hoping to speed walk a Turkey Trot (maybe the Zeeland MI 8K). After registering as an MSU Spartan for the Big Ten Network BTN 10K in Chicago this summer, but walking it on my own at home, my results were good enough that I might have placed 3rd in my gender/age division!  Not saying for sure that would have happened but my walk speed is nearly as good as the running pace of the relatively few women who are still entering races at my age. I also might have placed 3rd if I had walked last November in Zeeland!
 
I have reasons to hope and to train that have nothing to do with finish times, though. And those family tradition motivations will cause me to start penciling workouts into my calendar the next month.
 
Earned Runs will post a 11- to 12-week plan preview in early September that beginners or those just getting back into running can follow.  A walker plan will also be developed.
 
Will 2018 be the year your Turkey Trot tradition starts or continues?

RUN & MOVE HAPPY!
 
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/reasons-to-run-in-the-turkey-trot

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20846738/how-to-run-a-turkey-trot-race/