Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, The Bad, The Good, and the Ugly

Hey, a post about actual racing and not politics!! This is new. One of T.'s cousins found a free Turkey Trot 10K in San Jose for the family to do. I was a little skeptical of this idea because my longest run since September was about 5.5 miles (and I didn't break 8 minutes a mile for that run). But as T., her two brothers, and two cousins all signed up, I couldn't not do the free race. This race had (1) no water stops (not a big problem for me since it was really cold and I was only running for about 45 minutes, but those who took more than an hour could probably have used some); (2) no formal starting line or loud horn (we were talking about 4-6 rows back when I noticed that the lead runners had taken off); and (3) no chip timing (what can you really expect for a free race though?). On the other hand, it was set over a nice bike/running path, well marked and just about an accurate course.
www.avrtr.org
May become a family tradition! Overall, I am glad I did it, but I have long way to before my run is back to a respectable level.
The Bad: I only managed 47:04 (47:14 on Mr. Garmin). That was for 6.26 miles, so the course was a little long, but still that's only 7:35 a mile. If you are counting at home, that is basically (a) 40 seconds overall slower than I ran off the bike last April on less than 1 month of running following injury; and (b) basically the same per-mile pace that I ran last May in my first, and non-flat, half-marathon. Generally, you want to see your form improve over time, not deteriorate. But then again, my preparation for this race was basically non-existent. Thus, the 2011 starts now.
The Good: Basically all of my mile splits were with 5-10 seconds of each other (except for 1 mile which was uphill). At about the 4 mile mark, I caught another runner who has passed me several miles earlier. We ran together for about 1.5 miles, and I took off with about half a mile to go and buried him. Not sure whether that was because he just lost it or because I surged, but it felt good to race shoulder to shoulder with someone and come out on top (even if "top" meant 28th place or something like that). I was worried after the first mile or two that I might have lost some mental toughness by taking a 2 month break from organized training. But I still had at least something.
The Ugly: Temperature at race start was about 37 degrees. While California has made me somewhat soft, that was just brutal. I have never eschewed water after a race to drink coffee instead, but this time I did. Wow, that was cold.