Turkey Trot winners agree: pacing is key
Nearly 200 local runners took to the paths of Memorial Park on Saturday morning in hopes of winning a Thanksgiving turkey.
Six steadily paced runners won turkeys and one pace-challenged speed demon took home a cornish game hen.
The event, organized each year since 1997 by the Pikes Peak Road Runners, a local running club, awarded frozen prizes to the runners who best predicted their finish of the 5K run.
As you might expect, some familiar faces were among the winners, carried along the course, said one volunteer, by their “internal metronome.”
The runners took to the flat course, which included two loops of Prospect Lake, under a clear sky with a temperature that was closing in on 60 degrees.
As runners registered, they predicted their finish time. The clock was set for 60 minutes, the slowest time predicted, and as the first competitors set out on the course the clock began to count down.
Runners set out on the course as the clock displayed their predicted finish time. If everyone’s predictions were accurate, the race would have a mass finish rather than a mass start.
The fun comes from trying to figure out your running pace and sticking to it with no way of telling time other than the rhythm of your legs, heart and lung expansion and the movement of the sun.
The winner, Donald Karl, finished less than 3 seconds off his predicted his finish time of 27 minutes and 27 seconds (27:29:848).
For the second year in a row Cameron Thorman finished the furthest from his predicted time of 60 minutes, crossing the finish line in 43:21.269.
The top three runners all finished within 5 seconds of their predicted times – Karl, Simon Gutierrez (2.85 seconds) and John Cassidy (3.884) – , and the top eight runners finished within 10 seconds of their predicted times – Karl, Gutierrez, Cassidy, Jon Teisher (7.492), Michael Schenk (8.83), Rebecca Bloomfield (9.284), Charles Greenbaum (9.762) and Ryan Bohanan (9.882).
Internal metronomes, indeed.
Results: 2012 PPRR Turkey Trot Predict
Denver left wing Gabe Levin (9) slipped a shot past Tigers goalie Joe Howe (31) in the first period. The University of Denver hockey team hosted Colorado College Saturday night, November 18, 2012 at Magness Arena. Karl Gehring/ The Denver Post Photo by THE DENVER POST