Jingle Bell 5k

Hey all!  


Yesterday to kick off my 25th year I ran the Jingle Bell 5k for Arthritis in Raleigh with my husband.  I was super excited about this race because I felt basically terrible during my first 5k over Thanksgiving (I ran much too fast and tired really quickly), so I was pumped for the opportunity to slow down and do it "right." 


This race was a lot of fun because they encouraged people to dress up in festive holiday outfits and gave everyone bells to tie onto their shoes.  Here is me before the race, ready to go:

Don't mind my blinding white face sans makeup!

The course was decent-- it didn't have any large hills up or down-- but it did have long periods of slight inclines and declines.  Some of the slight hills up seemed to go on forever!  

My plan was to just run slower than I felt like I needed to so that I could run as long as possible and feel comfortable while doing so.  We ran at about an 11 minute-mile pace, which was very comfortable for me.  I only stopped once, for about 20-30 seconds, and that was around mile 2.5.  Our final time was 33:59... a little longer than my time over Thanksgiving (33:44), but I felt a MILLION times better.  I already can't wait to do my next race!  

I'm thinking of doing an 8k on March 3rd and, if selected in the lottery, the 5k associated with the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in DC on April 1st (my girlfriends are going to run the 10-miler but I am just NOT ready for that yet!).