First off I want to thank you for taking the time to read my blog today! If you don't know yet, this post is one of many that has been brought to you by the Bibravepro Team as a fun was to share our holiday spirit with you! After reading my post follow the link at the bottom to check out what my fellow Pro Jessica has to say about thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is some of everyone’s favorite holidays of the year. For runners it’s probably even more so. Not that we need an excuse to carb load because we do our best to on the regular, but this is a holiday where everyone else who isn’t a runner gets to eat like a runner. The point I’m trying to make is that now since others get to eat copious amounts of carbs with us, we don’t feel weird by piling the mashed potatoes and stuffing.
Thanksgiving was always very big in my family, both of my sides. So we would have thanksgiving early with my mom’s side and then we would be in Florida on the actually day with my dad’s side. Add on the gravy and the desserts and you can probably understand why I had some winter weight every year. However that all changed when I moved to Maui. I work in the hospitality industry which means that I have sold my holidays to the pleasure of my guests. I haven’t had a thanksgiving off in 5 years. So that made going home difficult because this is one of our busiest times of the year, and even if I was approved the time off I would feel bad making my team work harder in my absence.
So I knew I would have to come up with a new holiday tradition since I would be stuck here. My first two years were rather hard to come up with a tradition since my friends that I were close with were always changing – Maui is considered to be a revolving door in the sense that people are always coming and going. But it wasn’t until last year that I finally found what I wanted to do as my new tradition. The Valley Isle Road Runners (VIRR) hosts a turkey trot on thanksgiving that’s either an 8 mile or 16 mile race, with the intention of being a good training race for the upcoming Honolulu Marathon on December 11th.
What's super cool about this race is that it's not a position based race for the winners, meaning he/she who finishes first is not the winner. At the beginning of the race you give the officials an estimated finish time for the race. The winner are determined by who has the closest finish time to their prediction, without the use of cell phones or watches.
It's not exactly the flattest course by any means. The first six miles are all down hill, then the next eight miles are solid uphill, then the remaining two miles are down hill again back to the beginning elevation. But the views are remarkable, so it's worth it! The race begin in Kula, Maui at Rice Park which is over 3000 feet above sea level, so all the views are looking down on the valley of Maui.
To add a little more challenge to the race, there are companies that run bike rides from the top of the summit at 10,000 feet down to the bottom, so that means that you are dodging cars and bikers the whole time. Can you say, wear bright clothes?
I've never forget the feeling of finally making it to the top of the road and starting down. I was so happy after those grueling eight miles, but then my legs we so sore going down such a steep hill. I think that only momentum kept me going. Then the finish came into sight and I was so proud that I completed it. I hung around for the awards because I wanted to know how close people were going to be. The biggest surprise was that I had won second place for being within 3 minutes of my guess. My prize was a canned ham, which I had never had before but I was thankful for it regardless.
Then what made this race even more victorious for me was that I had burned over 1700 calories. That meant a free pass for all the thanksgiving fixing, an extra guilt free slice of pie, and gravy over everything. As I sat there reflecting after dinner I realized that I was full of food and pride for my run that day, and boy was I content. That's when I knew that this would be a tradition that I wanted to keep, I wanted to feel this good at least for one night every year!
Now it's time to continue on to Jessica's post as you continue along our Thanksgiving inspired Bibravepro blog linkup. Click here to go to Jessica's Blog! Wishing you all a safe and satisfying holiday this week!
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