My goal was to finish with an 8:30/mile pace so I seeded myself halfway between the 8 and 9min pace markers. I'm not sure if others don't pay attention to these or if they just have lofty goals, but I felt like I was dodging in and out of people for the first two miles.

I reached mile 1 at 8:44 and thought I'd blown my chances already. I just decided to pick up the pace and slowly try to peck away at my goal. I was keeping an eye out for some pace booty to follow and boy was there a lot of it! Latched onto a couple and just kept pushing the pace trying to keep it just below anaerobic threshold.

I kept checking my splits and my goal was looking reachable. After mile 5 I was 5 secs behind my 8:30/mile goal so I knew I could pick that up and then some as long as I didn't blow up. I had a decent amount left for a long final kick that allowed me to finish in 52:01 or 8:24 pace. I never looked at my watch on the last stretch or I'm sure I could've picked up those two seconds. No biggie though, still a 10K PR by a couple minutes. What a fun race!

Nothing other than maybe seed myself up a bit further. It doesn't really matter though, the race was a fun event and I really enjoyed it.

Walked over and got some water and just continued to walk around. Walked/jogged back to the car to get warmer clothes on. Then I walked back up and watched some more of the runners and did some good stretching.


Nothing really. I guess I was slowed by the crowds of people but thats what makes it so much fun.


This was the 98th running of the Thanksgiving Day Race, So they've had a few years to work out the kinks. It was the second time I've run it and both times it was very smooth. A very good and fun race, I'll do it every year that I'm here.