thanksgiving 2015

A storm rolled into Utah on Thanksgiving Eve, one that the forecasters were having difficulty getting ahold of, with possible mountain totals ranging from 6-18", plus the potential for snow/rain in the valleys.  This, of course, got me fretting about what to wear for my Thanksgiving morning City Creek Cold Turkey 6k, because I always fret about what I'm going to wear.  (Only for outdoors endeavors - I couldn't care less about work outfits: it's always black pants and some top.)  (And if you don't believe that I always fret about what to wear, just wait until the next post.)  I needn't have worried, however, since we got "half-skunked" on the storm, which dropped a neat six inches in Little Cottonwood Canyon during a 3-4 hour stretch in the afternoon/evening before moving out and leaving us with nothing for the overnight.

Pre-race purple fleece (which 

is about 20 years old - I will never get rid of it)

This meant that the weather for the race was nearly perfect: around 30F and dry, with high, thin clouds and negligible wind.  I much prefer to run when it's cold because I tend to heat up really quickly and even if I start cold, I'll be plenty warm by the race's end.  This time it was cool enough that I opted for a knit hat and I kept my gloves on for the whole race, although I did unzip my collar for the uphill portion.  The dry overnight meant that the racecourse was the standard one: start at the Capitol and run up City Creek Canyon, then turn around at the 3k mark and run back down through Memory Grove.  My uphill portion felt pretty good but as we approached the finish, I felt like I had no kick whatsoever.  Still, I continued my streak of consistent finishes:

Smiling at the finish

Race results (and history)
2015:  35:17.18, 6 out of 19 in age group, 186/593 overall
2014:  34:14:58 (fastest time by far, for some reason), 10 out of 26 in age group, 174/656 over
2013:  35:44.40, 7 out of 24 in age group, 243/682 overall
2012:  n/a (Thanksgiving in California)
2011: 35:41.33, 249/656 overall
2010:  37:22.76 (course changed due to ice/uphill finish), top half of finishers
2009:  35:53.32, top half of finishers

After the race, H dropped me at home.  I puttered around the house, making pies and cranberry sauce, while he went up to Alta.  When he got up there at 11 a.m., it was packed: the Collins corral was full, including the singles line, and he had to park in the very last row of the Wildcat base lot.  People were excited about the new snow, despite how little we ended up getting.  He noticed that the crowd thinned out a lot around 12:00 p.m., however, and figured that people had to get back to the valley for their Thanksgivings, just being able to get away for the morning.

You can see how full the parking lot 

and the corral are, even from up here

We had a quiet evening together afterwards, calling our families back east and exercising restraint in not having seconds on pie.  With a long weekend ahead, there would be plenty of time for runs on Collins and then pie.