On the art of crashing an alumni run

I didn't attend Sewanee, but my partner did.  We're going to Reunion Weekend and there's a 5k "Fun Run for Alumni."   I doubt there will be registration, awards, or possibly even an official clock, so the alumni part of the title can't be that serious, right?  I was going to run on the mountain anyway, so why not run with other people, even if I didn't go to school with them?  If anyone asks, I'll just chant "tigers, tigers, leave 'em in the lurch..." or run away very quickly.

This 5k is 12 days before the Greensboro Gobbler, and I'd love to know what kind of time to expect.  I want to run a sub-23:00, but it's a stretch.  I have to run at a 7:33 pace to hit 23:30 and 7:23 to squeeze by with 22:59.  Can I do that?  I don't know, but it's a heck of a lot shorter than a marathon.  If I have another race before the Gobbler to prepare for, maybe it'll get me motivated.  Or, if the fun run goes badly, maybe that will shame me into training well for the Thanksgiving run.

This week I plan to run hills one day and do speedwork one day.  Lately my speedwork has not been on the track, so I might try to make the local track workout on Tuesday.  I'll probably do 800's or mile repeats at below 5k pace- maybe around 7:00?  The hill workout will probably involve this one long hill on the Greenway; it's between .25 and .5 miles.  How's that for a hill?

In completely unrelated news (except for references to Thanksgiving), we sent our turkey off to be "processed" today.  That's a euphemism for having it killed, plucked, prepared, and frozen for later use.  Our male turkey has become very dominant and violent.  We've had to chase him with shovels as he attacked us.  He even attacked our neighbor- three times in one day!  Yes, he has lived long enough and now he'll be a delicious part of our Thanksgiving feast.

So, here's to running and eating turkey, but not at the same time.