Thanksgiving Race 1999

by Michael J. Daly, Connecticut Post, December 1999

There are a thousand stories in the Pequot Running Club's Thanksgiving Day Five-Mile Road Race, colloquially known as the Turkey Trot. To be precise, this year there were 2,804 stories, a record number of entries, according to the website where the results were posted Friday morning.

But because the race is actually a two-day event, those results are potentially misleading. Thursday you do the five miles. And while running five miles is difficult, what is actually the hardest part of the event comes Friday morning.

It is the Post-Pequot Thanksgiving Underwear Flip. Three-hundred and sixty four days a year I can hold underwear in front of me, raise my legs and step into them.

On Post-Pequot Friday, however, with quadriceps of fire, it goes like this: Drop the underwear on the floor. Step in and move feet forward under cloth. Fall backwards into rocking chair. Without bending legs, flick ankles as rocking chair goes backwards, allowing underwear to slide up - or down as it may be -- legs within reach of hands.

Allow rocking chair's subsequent forward motion to propel you out of seat to standing position while simultaneously pulling underwear into position without having to bend legs and stretch quads.

I'd like to know how many of all these hotshots were able to complete part two of the competition, which was played out in private in homes around the region Friday.

There are plenty of reasons for running in the race.

All of us, in a gray, heavy rain, at 8:15 in the morning, getting ready to run five miles .... I mean they must all have good reasons.

"Why, again, are we doing this?" my 17-year-old daughter, Kate, asked as we pounded along Greens Farms Road. I was at a momentary loss. "I think you were interested in the t-shirt," I said.

Kate and I ran together for mutual support, neither of us concerned with time. Until, of course, the trigger came.

It came at the four-mile mark, where an electronic timer read 47 minutes and change. A guy stood there holding a hand-scrawled sign that read, "Go, Baby, Go." As Kate and I passed, the guy yelled "YOU GUYS ARE BURNIN!!!"

"Kate," I said, "if we suck it up we can get in under an hour."

She grunted and picked up the pace slightly. We pushed along Pequot Avenue and began passing the occasional runner.

Near the corner at Center Street, just a few yards from the finish, came the final straw.

There, just yards ahead, running with a woman, was a man who looked familiar. His story is just another of the courageous tales that emerge from this event.

From his anguished gait, it was clear he was suffering, a contradictory blend of distress and determination.

His body - legs and lungs in particular -- seemed to be saying `Stop;' his heart, his guts -- probably his spleen, liver and appendix - prodded him on. It was Charles Walsh, the aging columnist for the Connecticut Post.

"Kate," I said, "there's Charlie Walsh. We've got to get ahead of him." We sucked it up yet again and streaked ahead of Charlie and his daughter at the last turn before the finish.

Gathered under the railroad overpass were race officials and many of those who had already finished.

They yelled. They cheered. "C'mon. You can make it in under an hour. Good job" and so on and so forth.

Kate, who had been struggling, was suddenly energized. Off she spurted, leaving me in her contrail.

She was over the finish line and into the chute in a flash. She was four or five people ahead of me and I saw her doubling over.

A race official asked if she was okay. To which Kate responded with a slight gagging sound, and lost a little of the Chinese food she'd had the night before.

You learn things about yourself when you press to complete a difficult task. Kate, for instance, learned that a combination of General Tso's chicken and subgum wonton is not the ideal training table.

I learned that advancing age does not relegate you to inactivity. Just look at Charlie, I keep telling myself.

Michael J. Daly is managing editor of the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 330-6394 or by e-mail at mdaly.connpost@snet.net