A turkey trot the morning of Thanksgiving has been a tradition for many years, and for 2025, I decided to return to the Skinny Turkey 10K in my city of Raleigh for the third time in four years. I had been under the weather for a couple of days, so I became concerned if my body would allow me to hold my standard pace on these intense rolling hills. Clocking 8:06 for the opening mile, I got my answer early on. Just over two miles in, thanks at least partly to the heavy wind, I dropped my left earbud that felt loose in my ear the entire race, ironically after telling myself this would never happen because it never had in my last hundreds of runs. I turned around, retrieved the earbud, and sprinted forward to catch up to and pass the runner who had been right in front of me, and I needed the following half a minute to catch my breath and regain my composure and rhythm. In spite of the continuous ups and downs, my pace never fluctuated wildly, and I recorded my fastest mile of 8:01 in the final full mile, pleasantly surprised by how little fatigue I felt.

Nearing the end, already knowing this was my fastest time yet on this course motivated me to push even harder in an attempt to blow the previous two comparable times out of the water. Maneuvering around countless 5K participants, I crossed the finish officially in 52:13.810 with an elevation gain of 489 feet according to my COROS Pace 2. Albeit far from my PR, considering all of my PRs came from much easier and flatter courses, I do not believe reclaiming my speed from just over half a decade ago to be out of reach. I will have to find out in the next several months, before Raleigh becomes insufferably hot again. Happy Thanksgiving!

PC: Mayberry Half Marathon

For the past month or two, my speed noticeably increased, and I would have to go back many years to find this level of consistency; consequently, to put this to the test, I was eager to participate in the Mayberry Half Marathon in Mount Airy, North Carolina, for the third time, on November 8, 2025. However, the weather irritatingly decided to turn on this one day, with the feels-like temperature forecast to reach nearly 70 degrees, and I almost did not sign up until reasoning with myself I would regret more if I let this opportunity go. I woke up just before 4:00 AM and drove to the race venue over two hours away, and, seeing the unanticipated dense fog that made driving inconvenient and lasted through the first several miles of the event, I knew I was dealing with nearly 100% humidity in addition to the temperature spike.

I trusted my fitness and enthusiastically started out fast and clocked 8:10 for the first mile. For the majority of the race, my pace did not fluctuate too wildly. Suddenly, with four miles to go, my body felt much heavier and slowed drastically, and I attribute this partly to the weather. The short inclines here and there near the end became more challenging than I had anticipated. My focus shifted solely to running the entire way, no longer caring about my pace, and I had to continue to search for positive thoughts to keep going. I expected to run significantly faster than 1:58:07.7 (gun time), but I was relieved to at least score another comfortable sub-two-hour finish.

Memorably, a high-school girl with an inhaler ran in front of me for the first four miles. After she waved at her family, she suddenly had an asthma attack, and I was caught off guard and reacted, “Oh, no.” I was concerned for her, until I saw her not too far behind me at the 7-mile turnaround. After she finished (her first half marathon!), I checked up on her, and we congratulated each other. On my way back to the shuttle, she came over to say good job again, and I gave her a hug and chatted with her family and friends. I also at the starting line ran into the race director of the Danville Half Marathon, a race I’ve completed four times including just three weeks ago, and we cheered one another on throughout. This is what I love about the running community and continues to have me register for races nonstop.