Berbee Derby 2012

This is perhaps the first race for which the alarm clock inexplicably failed me.  I woke up literally a minute before my friend Barry called to tell me he was outside in the car waiting.  I told him I needed 10 minutes.  I threw on contacts and running clothes and headed out the door.  I counted on the weather being the 50+ it had been all week.  I did not count on wind.

After I crossed the finish line.

This is the 9th annual Berbee Derby.  The event happens on the morning of Thanksgiving Day and runners often don turkey hats on their heads.  I saw a couple of people dressed as M&Ms or carrots as well.  I think anything that might show up on your dinner table later that day makes for an appropriate costume.  The Berbee Derby has two events: a 5k run/walk and a 10k run.  It's an unexpectedly large event.  They were telling us at the start that there was something like 8000 runners.  I registered fairly late.  I wasn't sure I was going to do this run, and I kept procrastinating on the registration.  Come Monday, I'm down at the Copps on Fish Hatchery buying some Thanksgiving Day supply when I saw the Berbee Derby registration office.  I took that as a sign.  Half an hour later, I was registered.  They assigned me to wave B for the 10k, though I informed them to expect only a 10 min/mile pace out of me.  I wanted a workout on Thanksgiving Day, not so much a PR.  It's my first 10k race though so it's an automatic PR anyway.  As luck would have it though, this 10k is slower than the first "10k" at Lake Monona.

The parking wasn't too bad given the event size.  Barry and I had a nice warm-up walk to the start.  When I registered on Monday, they gave me my race bib then and there.  My race bib was 560 and I was wondering why I was only 560 when they closed registration on Tuesday, less than 24 hours later.  Turns out, at Berbee Derby they assign you your bib number right when you pick up your bib.  Barry thought that was pretty neat.  He ended up with 8650.  Barry was registered for the 5k, but he decided to do the 10k with me.  And speaking of technology at this race, they automatically switched him over to the 10k in the results page.     

It was cold at the start.  I had on a long sleeve and capris and I brought my jacket with me for before and after the race, but I started to wonder if I should've worn a second layer.  Without the wind, I would've been just fine, but there was quite a bit of a gust that had me nervous.  I wore Barry's Berbee Derby shirt for a while.  Then, about 15 minutes before the start, the wind seemed to die, so I stuck with my original long sleeve and capris.  It turned out to be the right choice.

The 10k starts at 9am, and the 5k 15 minutes later.  It's a chipped at the start and at the finish.  And for the 10k, there was also a timing mat at the 5k.  There were quite a bit of hills, but nothing too bad.  Mostly gently rolling hills where one could see the end, unlike the Haunted Hustle and that one hill that seem to go on forever.  Annoyingly, all the hills were accompanied by strong gusts of wind.  Barry and I started out together and did the first mile just a bit over 9 minutes according to his watch.  He took off about half a mile or so later.  I kept at a pretty good 9min/mile pace for mile 2, but somehow gained a whole minute between mile 3 and mile 5.  27:50 at the 5k and I finished with a chipped time of  57:27, about 3 minutes behind Barry.  Amusingly, we both finished 99th in our divisions. 

Now to make up for those lost calories with some turkey.