Turkey Trot: Bonfield Express 5K

Picture lifted off the Facebook page.
I'm in the white, second from right.

This morning The Sailor and I woke up early (for a non-work day) to run the Bonfield Express 5K. It was a little chilly and dreary and misting when we left home but it was a good race. After the Hot Chocolate race, I wanted to beat The Sailor.

We started off with about 3,400 other runners through the streets of Downers Grove. It was pretty crowded. We started in front of the walkers corral but still ran around a lot of walkers during throughout the course. And also children and people with dogs. Not really very safe in my opinion for such a large race. At one point I saw a woman running with a dog almost clothesline a kid with the dog's leash. Luckily she noticed before the kid went down.

Anyway, I followed The Sailor throughout the course, weaving around people the whole way. We got to the final stretch and he started sprinting. I tried to keep up, and was doing a good job, but about 20 yards from the finish, felt like I might puke if I kept up at that pace.

So he beat me by four seconds. He finished in 29:55 and I finished 29:59. Pace 9:39. Not too bad considering how little I've run in the past three weeks.

If it's any indication of the crowd, our splits were 10:16, 10:10 (lost 8 seconds to tie my shoe) and 9:12. Which means we did the last .10 mile in 20 seconds? Hmm. That's not right.I trust the official race time over the GPS on my phone.

Anyway, this will probably be our rematch.


And last night we saw Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band at Schuba's. Awesome show. Where else will you see a washboard played like an instrument and then set on fire during the finale?