Race Recap: Cedar Falls Turkey Trot

Cedar Falls Turkey Trot, 11/25/21 Cedar Falls, IA

Weather: 20 degrees, windy (windchill around 0 degrees)

Terrain: Recreation trails and grass

Distance: 3.1 miles

Course map

When you have a small child, you have to modify your Thanksgiving day workout routine. Gone are the days when I would potentially travel to another area to do a half marathon. No, when you have a six-year-old, you go to the Basic White People Thanksgiving mainstay: the local 5K turkey trot. Fortunately, we have a fun one (fun run?) right here in town! I picked up our packets the day before at the running store. T-shirts are cute and heather-red, bibs have chip timing. We have three cheap turkey hats from Amazon from the race two years ago. Team Gobble Gobble was ready to rock.

Woke up to freezing cold weather. The day before it was in the 50s, but this is Iowa, so it was 20 degrees with a 0 windchill at 8 AM. We drove to the venue and Husband dropped us off and drove 1/3 mile to park and run back to us. Parking for this race can be iffy but fortunately they have satellite lots and even a shuttle from the farthest one. Child was already sort of cranky (possibly from the cold, but more likely because his Mood Switch seems to have been set to Total Butt this week) and he got even crankier during the very short interval between our arrival and the race start, which was promptly at 8:30 as advertised!

Nobody wearing a turkey hat should look that distraught.

We took off through the grassy field, letting Child set the pace, obviously. And his pace was faster than I expected. Child took off at a sprint. Husband easily jogged beside him. I trailed behind slightly gasping for air and semi-hoping Child would trip over a stick or something and I'd have a second to catch my breath. We wound through the grassy trails near the start before rejoining the paved trail and hitting the one-mile mark near the campground (in 11 minutes). Child's mood was oscillating wildly between "yay exercise" and "I don't like that I'm not in first place." My mood was oscillating between "too winded to think" and "I should have eaten more carbs this morning." 

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I was grateful that Child took more walk breaks at this point as we made our way around Big Woods Lake on trails that I've traversed hundreds of times. We hit the mile 2 mark just before the bridge and that mile was in about 12 minutes. Holy smokes, this kid was gonna set a new personal best by a lot. His average 5K pace in his previous attempts was over 17 minutes. We went back near the start and Child was quite upset that we still needed to loop around the frisbee-golf course before finishing. "I'm tired!" Join the club, kid. 

The frisbee-golf course had some hay bale hurdles that I managed to jump over in one bound. Shockingly, Child did as well, despite being approximately 4'4". The walk breaks were becoming even more frequent now and I was almost starting to acclimate to the intense cold that was making my lungs feel like a shattered glass bottle. We looped through the entire park and when he saw the finish line, Child took off at a totally unreasonable pace, insisting that he would at the very least beat his parents in this race. Our finish time: 36:45, which is a new Child PR by 18 minutes. Awesome.

We immediately got in the long line for mini pies, which were our "finisher medals" (medals are temporary, pies last forever). Flavors available were apple, pumpkin, peach blackberry, and raspberry. We got the latter two, since I'd already made the former two at home. A nice cool-down walk to the car and we were out of there.

And I was mildly hypothermic. Happy Thanksgiving!

Pros:

-Logistics. The first year for this race was two years ago, and last year was cancelled due to COVID. They really cleaned up the logistics this time - no more confusion about when/where to start, or the parking situation. 

-Early packet pickup. Nice to have this year.

-Pies. I mean come on. That's awesome.

Cons:

-Terrain. I didn't mind a combination of grass and trails, but it was fairly ankle-breaking grass if you aren't an experienced trail runner (which there are not many of at a turkey trot).

-Iowa. The weather sucked. Not the race director's fault.

-Venue's lack of on-site parking is a bit annoying.

Race Grade: A-. A great local race option that gets the job done, as far as turkey trotting.

Video I took during the race

At-Home Cardio For A Super-Fit Winter

 It's that time of year again. The leaves are changing and falling. The air is crisp. My allergies are going so bonkers that my nose is essentially a faucet. In the words of...someone on Game of Thrones, I dunno, I never watched it: winter is coming. Which means your workouts will be making their way indoors, at least some of the time.

If you are a snow bunny, you may already own a pair of snowshoes or cross-country skis, or a fat-tire bike. You may already know that waterproof socks are Jesus's single greatest invention, after skin lubricant. But if your idea of a good time does not include frozen hydration-backpack tubing, you might want to bring your workouts indoors. Fortunately, you can create a comprehensive home gym of cardio equipment for yourself for a relatively small financial investment.

There are three main pieces of equipment that I will detail here, but first I will list some bigger-ticket items that you may be interested in: a stationary bike or a bike trainer (which allows you to turn your bike into a stationary bike); a treadmill; a rowing machine; an elliptical. These are the main pieces of cardio equipment that are available at most gyms. If you absolutely LOVE using one or more of these, consider buying one for your home. A treadmill is probably the most versatile, but the machine you should get is the machine you *want to use.*

Now for my aforementioned three, listed in order from least intense to most intense.

1) Mini Bike

I bought my husband this under-desk bike for Father's Day and he is enjoying it. It gives him something to do while sitting on phone meetings at his home office. Because it's not electrically powered, he is able to bring it in to work when he goes back to the office full-time. The links I'm providing in this section are all the exact equipment that I bought. I purchased this one in particular even though there are cheaper versions available because I wanted to buy a heavier one on purpose. A heavier one is more sturdy and less likely to move. Despite this, be advised that you will ideally want to use a non-moving chair and put the mini bike so that it backs up against something solid. Otherwise you may have to readjust very frequently to keep the fit perfect, especially if you crank the resistance up and are pushing harder against it.

2) Mini Stepper

Not gonna lie, I've wanted one of these for a long time, so I took the opportunity to get one. It has been an absolute joy to use. It's not really like climbing stairs, but rather like running in place. The range of motion is very small, but it gets/keeps the heart rate up and is extremely portable. I keep mine under the coffee table unless I'm using it. There's nothing like throwing a movie on HBO Max and getting on this bad boy for 90 minutes. 

But if you want to take your workouts up several notches...

3) Climber

BOY HOWDY. This machine packs a punch. It is the single best piece of equipment you can purchase for your home, as far as efficiency. This machine uses your entire body. Not kidding. Your lower back will be sore. Your legs, your arms, your abs. Big range of motion with all of them. It is such a phenomenal workout that I can really only do it for a few minutes at a time, so I'll generally do 2 minutes on the climber, move to the mini stepper for 8 minutes, and go back and forth like that for an interval workout. I swear I am not being compensated by Big Climber for this endorsement, but it is just a great machine. Takes up a bit of room in the house, but it's well worth it.

I've also been pleased by how much my combination stepper/climber workouts have translated to run fitness. I haven't been running much but I've been doing plenty of this style of home workout, and I am able to perform really well when I DO have to run. The fitness translates in a way that an elliptical machine (for example) doesn't. And with similarly low impact. 

So consider getting something fun for yourself for your winter training, whether you want to enjoy the snow or are more "indoorsy."