2021 Thanks For Giving 5K

Every Thanksgiving there’s a 5K Turkey Trot race near my hometown of Kensington, New Hampshire called Thanks for Giving 5K. Because it’s so flat and close to home, it’s difficult to pass up doing! Although I ran the NYC Marathon about three weeks prior, my body felt recovered minus some nagging left ankle pain. It could just be me, but whenever I run my fastest any nagging pain I feel goes away. Sometimes running fast forces you to run with better form than jogging/walking. When the form goes away you can feel yourself going slower. This is why I enjoy racing so much.

Thanksgiving/Race Day morning was chilly, especially when wearing only “short track shorts” and a tank top. The key thing I’ve learned to not feeling cold is to not feel nervous. I was psyching myself up to combat the chill by doing some warmups, talking with a local running friend and coach DJ Ayotte, and getting pumped up by Doug and Dad. I was also excited to potentially beat my personal record of 17:45.

To avoid running through crowds, I lined myself at the front of pack. There were about 600 people running the 5K that day so I didn’t think I would be placing overall. I’d just be happy to not make the ankle worse, as well as run a result that’d make my family and friends proud. As someone who’s in entertainment, I always want to give people a great show!

At the starting line warmed up with the “race rush.” I’m second from the right.

The race started and I found myself running with what looked to be like 10 high school and college cross country runners and a bearded local legend, who DJ told me ran a 2:25:00 marathon. We were all running at a 5:15 mile pace. Knowing this wasn’t sustainable for me, I dropped down to a 5:30 mile pace and let anyone who wanted to catch the bearded marathoner pass me. By the first mile, I went from 10th to 4th. For a quick bit I passed the 3rd place runner, but then I got passed shortly thereafter. The second mile the cold air was making it slightly difficult to breathe and I figured it was better to focus on taking deep breaths to make a pass on the 3rd place runner. There was no way I was catching up to 2nd place or the bearded marathoner still running a 5:15 pace.

The third and final mile, I felt amazing. Going at a 5:30-something pace, the PR was in sight! Up to that point I was stressing about getting passed and not being able to breathe well. People say sometimes it’s not good to think about things outside of a race during a race, but sometimes I need inspiration to get me to make a surge. For me as cheesy as it sounds what inspires me the most are my family and friends. Anyone who’s close to me makes me so proud and I want to live a life that inspires them too. My family and friends are fighters, and at this point in the race I wanted to fight with everything I had left for them and take 3rd.

And I did! Around 2.5 miles in, I passed the 3rd place runner and I tried keeping 3rd place to the finish, which happened to be where most of the uphill in the race was. I kept fighting, running negative splits over the 20 foot elevated “barely a hill” hill towards the finish. End result… 17:21… 3rd place overall! New PR and placing 3rd out of 600 runners. It felt great. At the finish I picked up a nice homemade award and gift certificate too. Afterwards my brother and Dad and I went home, prepped and had a Thanksgiving feast, and went to see fireworks. Thanksgiving fireworks is a local tradition in our town of Kensington. Don’t ask why… it’s a lot of fun. It should be a Thanksgiving tradition everywhere!