For the past eighteen years the Hog’s Breath has put on the Hog Trot, a Thanksgiving weekend 5K race. This was only my second one. I signed up late, was congested and had both wine and margaritas the night before. There was no way it was going to go well for me.
As it turned out, it was fun. About 400 runners and walkers gathered to run or walk the 3.1 mile course through Old Town and Fort Zachary Taylor park. It is a good course and there is a bit of trail running involved, so it is best to pay attention to your footing, not necessarily the people in front of you. Tripping on the narrow part of the trail would be bad. Fortunately, I saw none of that.
This year, FKGuy hung out at the Hog’s Breath with Babka while my cousin and I ran the race. She finished in a respectable time, while I ambled in to the finish line, accompanied by Babka for the last few blocks, rather slowly. Babka did, however, receive a lot of cheers – mostly from people who thought she ran the entire race. Maybe next year. Her speed is good – way better than mine – but her endurance needs a little work.
This is a good race for so many reasons. The weather is usually nice (it was perfect this year). There is free beer after the race. I assume there is also free beer during the race for spectators, but as I am typically near the end of the pack, most people have started drinking by the time I am finished.
Plus, they have a raffle to benefit the Key West High School track program. We won a membership to the best move theater ever – the Tropic Cinema. Alas, we are already members so I passed the membership along to some friends.
Next year I will be fresh on the heels of finishing the New York Marathon (I hope) so I will try to achieve a few things that I did not do this year: no being sick the day of the race, no pre-race margaritas (that should be pretty easy to accomplish) and hopefully finish in a decent time. After all, 3.1 miles should seem pretty easy after 26.2.
