Better Late Than Never: Jingle Bell Run 5k Recap

You'd think that now that I can finally run again, I'd be writing up a storm. Guess not! I'm terribly delinquent on this race recap.

On Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early at 5:30 am to drive allllllll the way to the Jingle Bell 5k at Stony Point Fashion Park. Last year, I did this race by myself and it was a pretty sad experience. Not wanting a repeat, I set about getting Marcey to do this with me. Luckily, she wasn't very difficult to convince.

We met up 30 minutes before the start of the race so that we could each don our "festive" gear. Last year I did not wear anything festive and felt very left out. Generally, I'm not a big fan of wearing costumes or decoration while running, so I went minimal.

Jingle Bell run indeed.

After tearing ourselves away from the heated seats in Marcey's van, we wandered to the start line about 5 minutes before we were set to begin. Marcey had gamely volunteered to run/walk with me (despite my protests), so we lined up in the middle of the pack of about 300 runners (who knows how many there really were... I'm terrible at estimating this kind of thing).

I hadn't shared this, but my foot hurt all week long last week. I made a very stupid footwear decision on Sunday the 25th and for the rest of the week it felt like I had gone back in time to the beginning of November. My foot hurt again... a lot. I did not run at all leading up to the Jingle Bell, instead opting to swim and bike. I confessed my sins to Steve at PT on Thursday, who was baffled as to why 30 minutes in a pair of high heeled boots would cause my foot to freak out as much as it did. He was also mystified by my decision to wear said boots to the grocery store. (What can I say... my flats looked ridiculous with this particular pair of jeans, ok??)

Despite my nerves about my foot crapping out on me, I wasn't exactly keeping an eagle eye on my Garmin to ensure that we were running exactly one minute and walking one minute. The course for the Jingle Bell 5k starts at the shopping mall then involves some pretty steep hills in two office-complex cul-de-sacs before coming back around to the mall. Sometimes we walked longer if the walking leg was going uphill and then ran longer as we went downhill.

Anyhow, I was extremely nervous about running this 5k, so did not push it as far as pace goes. The race was not officially timed, but the almighty Garmin says we ran it in 34:17 (10:42 min pace), which isn't too shabby considering the run/wak and hills.

In fact, we did so well that we literally jingled our bells off.

I don't have much to report as far the actual race goes because really it was just a vehicle (read: excuse) for getting together with Marcey for a run. It's a pretty casual affair that includes dogs, walkers, strollers, reindeer antlers, and elf costumes. ID's are even required for packet pick up. It's small and generally well-organized and a nice opportunity to raise awareness and money for arthritis.

So "Road to Recovery" race 2 is now complete. The best thing about it was that I got to start AND end with my beloved HMR. Thanks for being there for me, Marcey. You're the best.