Ft Worth Turkey Trot

This was the first year that I have ever done a Turkey Trot other than Austin. The Austin Turkey Trot is HUGE. There are games for the kids, music, people in Pilllsbury suits walking around....it is a Turkey Day Festival in and of itself. So, I was sure what to expect from Ft. Worth.Getting there wasn't hard and finding a parking place was fairly simple. I think we ended up about two blocks from the actual start, parked in front of someone's house. We had about an hour to kill but still had to pick up our packet. The packet pickup lines were no where near as long as the Austin lines but there were few volunteers and they were not doing a good job of keeping folks in their correct alphabetical lines. So, we stood in line, drinking our coffee, eating our Clif Bar breakfasts, people watching. Oh, and BIG bonus points, here, as it turns out dogs are allowed and the Ft Worth canine population was well represented.When we finally made it through the line, we were told they were out of shirts and we would have to sign up for them to send a shirt to us. Also, the chip pickup was at another table so, as Kent had a chip and I didn't care if I was timed or not (let me point out that normally I would run the Trot with one or more of my dogs and this was the first year I had not done that. I missed my Eden and we almost went back for her.), we skipped it and went to find the start of the 10k and to do our 2 mile warmup. When we had first arrived there seemed to be about 3,000 people milling around, listening to the band play, eating free yogurt and doing warm-up exercises with Jane Fonda. As we headed towards the course, we noticed that more than half the participants were gone. We concluded that most of the folks were doing the 5k which started about 50 mins before the 10k or the 1 mile walk which started with the 5k. As we took off on the course, for our warmup, we noticed that the 5k'ers were making their way to the finish (quickly, I might add) and were having to dodge around the walkers, many of which had their pooches or baby strollers. That probably could have been better planned. So, deduct points for possible collisions or dog bites.We finished up our warmup, headed back to the car (which was conveniently close) and took off a couple of more layers of clothing. By this time it was probably in the upper 60's low 70's. We headed back to where we thought the start was located. Turned out we weren't completely right. As it got close to time, they herded all 500 or so, of us, into a parking lot where there was a white line drawn on the ground. As Kent handed me his gloves, camera and shirt, which I wrapped around my waist with my own long sleeve shirt (not very aero dynamic at this point) I heard a faint 8...7...6....5... I yelled to Kent, "GO...GO...GO" and pushed him the direction of the start. With no starting mat to run across Kent needed to be as close to the front as he could get when the gun went off. Correction here, when the guy yelled, "GO". (most of the racers couldn't believe we had started as it was 2 mins early and not many people had heard the countdown). So take off points for an unorganized start and double negative points for no National Anthem. (how do you know a race is about to start without a national anthem?) First mile was down hill...then, from there, it was up, down, up, down, up, down. I mean, I thought Ft. Worth was flat. You basically ran up and down a hill on one block, took a corner another corner and paralleled the same street with the same hills in it. There were water stops about every 2 miles, however, at some of the water stops there was a total of two people working. There were not too many people out on the course, cheering, but the ones that had come out of their houses, coffees in hands, were all smiles and cheers. The last 200 meters was totally down hill which provided a strong finish, if you have anything left in ya, and a great picture as you churn your way over the finish line. The after race celebration was on, with the "We only know one melody" country band and the awarding of giant trophies to the winners of the different age groups and races. The results were posted within 15 mins of our finish so add points for efficiency. However, turns out that the normal standard champion chips were not used at this race so we had to go convince the results guy that Kent came in 4th in his age group and 10th over all. For some reason the woman who promised him she had written it down when he crossed the mat never conveyed the information to anyone that matter. Whatever, it was the principal of it cause, in the end, you only get hardware if you get top three in your age group. So, with no tshirt and no trophies, we loaded up ourselves and headed to a 7-11 for drive home coffee.