Living Waters Turkey Trot (Adrian - 2020 - 5K)

   Living Waters Turkey Trot 2020 Photos

50 Mile Drive

The Hands and Feet Turkey Trot hosted by Living Waters Mission and St. Johns Lutheran Church was the second of only two runs I could find in the entire state of Michigan on Thanksgiving Day.  Usually there are so many runs on Thanksgiving it can be overwhelming.   Almost everything got cancelled this year on the holiday.  I was registered for the New Beginnings Turkey Trot in Sheridan leading up to Thanksgiving.  I saw their cancellation post on their Facebook page days before their November 20^th  race cancellation email was sent out.  It was pretty short notice and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get a back-up run in time.  Lakeview had an in-person race.  It was a two-hour drive.  I emailed the race director at Lakeview to see if they were debating a cancellation of the race.  They seemed solid on an in-person race.  I kept searching and found a run in Adrian.  I had been registered for a half marathon in Adrian in late October.  Even though my foot was healed at the time I didn’t want to do the high mileage and I wasn’t expecting Jason to run 13.1 miles for me. 

 

…5k fill-ins are one thing. ^_^

 

 Registering for Adrian would cut our travel time in half on the holiday.  Distance was my deciding factor in registering for the Hands and Feet Turkey Trot on November 21^st.  I liked what I heard about Lakeview’s run more, but I didn’t want to kill our holiday driving.  Adrian was also confident, like Lakeview, that their 5K would move forward no matter what.

 

I like driving down south as much as I like driving to the thumb.  The country roads away from expressways are always nice for traveling.  We saw our first sheep farm on the way to Adrian and the longest train.  The land was so flat we could see train cars for what seemed like miles.

 

St. Johns Lutheran Church was either newer construction or taken good care of over time.  They had a nice pavilion for check-in.  It was pretty cold.  The pavilion was a bit warmer underneath.  I got a long sleeve shirt but no bib because the run was not timed.  They had a start time of 9:00am but you could start any time you wanted within reason.  There were about 30 participants.  It was a straight 1.55 miles down the Kiwani’s Trail and back.  The trail was a wide blacktop path with the exception of a few scenic, but very slick wood bridges.    I saw a good amount of Adrian residents out taking a Thanksgiving Day walk.  A lot of homes backed up to the trail with amazing backyards.

 

I kept anticipating the turn-around point.  At one point I saw a few people that looked like they were standing still up ahead but it ended up being an optical illusion as they were runners.  It felt like it was taking forever to reach the turn-around.  I finally came up to two guys with warm drinks in their hands.  I asked them and they told me they were the turn-around crew.   The halfway turn ended up being at 1.71 miles.  I hadn’t been wrong about it taking a lot longer.  At that moment I knew the run was going to be almost three and a half miles and I didn’t have a lot of holiday energy.  I still made it across the finish.

 

Almost all of the race participants left immediately after finishing.  We stayed to get pictures of the church.  I got a really cool Kenya bead bracelet after finishing from the Living Waters Mission.  They gave a bracelet to all three of our kids!  They had two sizes.  The smaller size fit well on kid wrists.  The kids enjoyed the hills and huge grass field on the church’s property.  Corky also liked the scenery.  There was no post-race food or drinks.

 

After the run we drove into downtown Adrian.  In addition to shutdown closures there was nothing open with it being Thanksgiving, so we couldn’t get local food.  Adrian has a HUGE downtown!  It’s one of the biggest downtowns I have been in.  Like Imlay City, I noticed many of the small businesses had “For Sale” signs in the windows and were empty.  It was even more disheartening because Adrian seemed to have a lot more closures.  I wondered what the town had looked like before.

 

Things I take from the Hands and Feet Turkey Trot are: 

 

1.  The two Christmas ornaments I saw hanging from a tree on the trail.  They were random and cool and stuck out by shining in the sunlight.  One was a snowman!

 

2.  The huge Adrian city sign!   It was the biggest sign all of time.  Adrian surpassed Freeland!  It was very easy to park next to.  The only bad thing was the condition it was in.  It was literally falling apart.  I hope the city of Adrian has plans for a renovation.  It’s a great sign.

 

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