From turkey trots to jingle bell jaunts and resolution runs, holiday-themed events are another way to have fun on the run. If you’re in the Kansas City area, join several of us tomorrow at the Resolution Run, hosted by Midwest Triathlon Coaching. Run either a 5k or 10k, starting at 9 am at Latteland, 7900 State Line Road. Cost of admission: canned goods or a coat for City Union Mission. Back in November, Garmin aviation engineer David was visiting family in Arizona over Thanksgiving and took the opportunity to join up with a local run and talk up the latest in Garmin fitness with the participants. Here’s David’s race recap:

The Fordney Farms 10K is an annual Thanksgiving Day run put on by the Thunder Mountain Running Club. This running club is special because it’s made up of mostly current and former military and their families. It was a small run (in terms of participation), probably about 25 people. It was about a 40-minute drive out to the middle of nowhere from Sierra Vista, which comes in handy because you don’t need course monitors or traffic control. The staging area was at one of the local fire stations. Believe it or not, Arizona gets a little cool, as you can see with everyone huddling at the start. There wasn’t a whole crowd to sandwich in with, so that made it even colder! The course was an out and back, out and back and out and back, basically three different points. Got to see mountains along the way (albeit in the distance) and varying terrain, asphalt, dirt, and gravel. I didn’t get a picture of it, but there was a local dog running with us that was AWESOME. He ran with the head of the pack, then stood and waited at each turn around until the last person rounded it, then took off and caught back up with the leaders, never leave a man (or woman) behind. I had to give him props and one of my water bottles at the end. He also got a Danish, but he deserved that for sure! The organizer of the race said he didn’t know whose dog it was, it just shows up every year and runs the race.

Back in September, on my last long run while training for the Kansas City Marathon, I tore my calf muscle. My doctor said I would be out 4-6 weeks and miss the marathon (3 weeks away), but I told him that wasn’t happening and tried to run it anyway. My leg lasted all of 5 miles. I was so devastated — to train all summer and not complete it was just gut-wrenching. Anyway, the Thanksgiving Day run was my first real run (short of a few little training runs 2-3 miles) since the injury, and it still bothered me quite a bit, but not enough to stop the run, so it was more of a nagging pain than an injury. As the altitude there was 4,300 feet and we’re around 980 in Kansas City, there was a little bit of altitude difference to deal with. That, coupled with my time off, meant two things — I was going really slow, and I had to walk a little up the hills. I finished though and felt better for it.

After the race, everyone was extremely pleased to know that Garmin had provided t-shirts and bags as their swag for this run. I was more than happy to tell them about our latest Forerunner watches and invite all of them out to the Garmin Marathon, starting right here at Garmin headquarters, on April 20, 2013. Ft. Leavenworth is just right down the road!