O'Side Turkey Trot

Since I started running, I've been wanting to run a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot.  My schedule finally worked out and I realized I would be able to this year!  San Diego offers several Turkey Trots and after some research and getting some feedback, I decided to run the O'Side Turkey Trot.  And this year, they were offering a combo-- you could sign up to run the 10K and the 5K.  Two medals? Sign me up!!!

How fun is this turkey?!

I woke up early and made my way to Oceanside.  It's about an hour drive for me, so I made sure to give myself plenty of time to get there and find the race area.  Once I arrived, I made my way over to the Oceanside Civic Center for packet pick-up.  I'm glad I got there early-- my bib was missing!  I made my way over to race solutions and they were finally able to get me situated and assigned me a new bib number.  Now I was ready to go!

I made my way to the starting area and met up with Kendyl.  She's one of my Instagram running friends I met at a meet-up earlier in the summer-- it was great to see her again in person and catch up.  She was running the 5K and we decided we would me up after I finished the 10K.  After we chatted for a bit, it was time for me to head over the corrals for the 10K start.  

The 10K

This was my first time in Oceanside, so I wasn't really sure what to expect with this race.  As I headed over to the corrals, I discovered it was a "place yourself" corral.  I went into the 9-10 min mile-- I was getting over a cold and hadn't run in almost two weeks, so I didn't know what to expect of myself.  The corral area and race staff were well organized.  They entertained us before the start and after the National Anthem, we were ready to go.  The race was scheduled to start at 6:45am and they were prompt! 

The first four miles of the run were boring scenery wise-- it's through the streets of Oceanside.  It was fun to see what stores and restaurants were there since I'd never been to the area, but truly not that exciting.  There was also a little bit of drizzle during this portion of the race so I was trying to be careful not to slip on the wet ground.  But was we made our way to mile 4, we found ourself on the beach and it was beautiful!

The Views!

The beach is my happy place, so I love any run that goes near beaches.  We ran down the boardwalk area and it was fun to have crowd support from the beach rentals. It was early on Thanksgiving morning so it's always great when people are willing to wake up and cheer on complete strangers!  We made our way on the boardwalk to the pier-- running on the pier was fun!  After the pier, we made our way back up to street level but still had a awesome view of the water.  We even passed the house from Top Gun, which was cool.  The last half mile or some took us back down to the boardwalk area, but a little bit closer to the water.  With the high tide, the waves were actually crashing up over the rocks and onto the race course.  It was awesome!  I wish I had my camera ready for this-- it was definitely an experience.  

Overall, the 10K was fun.  The last two miles of the course make up for the boring first 4 miles.   I would definitely run it again.  

The 5K

After the 10K finished, I headed back to the start line area to meet up with Kendyl and run the 5K.  It's always fun to have friends to run with so I was excited to run with here.  The 5K also had "place yourself" corrals, but it was definitely more chaotic than the 10K.  There were more participants for the 5K, so it was more crowded and I had to question how many people in the front corrals actually run at their placed paces.  We even saw runners with strollers making their way into the front corrals, even though the strollers were supposed to be in the back.  

The start to the 5K was similar to the 10K.  It started on time and after the National Anthem, we were off.  The beginning of the course is very similar to the 10K-- same streets, just not as far.  It wasn't as boring this time since I was running with a friend.  After a while, I was tired and slowed down a bit.  I told Kendyl I would catch up with her, but we didn't meet up again until the finish line.  I pushed myself for the 10K and was feeling it during the 5K.  

The finish of the 5K was the same as the 10K.  My favorite part of both races was the water crashing onto the race course-- it's not something you experiences with most races.  After meeting up with Kendyl, we made our way for post-race nutrition and to pick up our race shirts.  They had a sleeveless tech shirt option for women which I loved-- I'm not a fan of short sleeve race shirts.  

This was a great race for my first Turkey Trot.  I would definitely running again.  

Did you run on Thanksgiving this year?  

Until next time, happy running!

Jenn13.1