Sunday, December 7, 2008

Reindeer Run Race Report

Rich and I before the race.

Rich, Kristen, Scott and Stephanie (my friends that I work with) before the race...unfortunately Scott "forgot" his antlers. Stephanie, Kristen, me




Posing in the kitchen before we left


The faces of some seriously elite athletes!






Rich and I both PR'd!!!! (for my non-running readers, that means we got our personal records, are best time yet). And I ran the whole time in my antlers, they didn't budge! We met Kristen, Scott and Stephanie downtown and took some pics then made our way to the starting line. There were tons of cute costumes, and lots of dogs (some of them in costume too!) so it was an entertaining run. Poor Steph dropped her inhaler right as the gun went off and we got separated from her. The boys ran with us for the first couple of minutes then they took off. I was seriously tempted by the volunteers handing out Krispy Kremes at each mile marker, but I resisted! Kristen is really fit, but she usually just runs on the treadmill and this was her first race. She did great!! I could tell we had a good pace going because it was tough. We both agreed after the first mile that we would focus on running and not talk until the end, and I was definitely huffing and puffing. The several beers I had Friday night probably weren't helping! The last half mile was a real struggle, and I was so thankful that I had Kristen with me to keep me going. I'm not sure exactly what our official time was but I know it is somewhere in the range of 29:40-29:55, more than a full minute faster than my goal, and about 2 minutes faster than my previous 5K PR. Woo hoo!! A HUGE shoutout to Kristen for such a fine showing in her first 5K! And Steph, you would have kicked our butts had you gotten off to a better start. Rich finished up in 26 and change, 2 minutes faster than his Turkey Trot PR last week. I never run under 10 minute miles, so that was an amazing time for me. I am really proud of us, the training is paying off. My lower obliques are oddly sore this morning, I guess I somehow used them more than I normally do when running. After the race, Southend Brewery in downtown Charleston provided free beer from 9:30-11am....just what we needed at 9:30am right? :) There's nothing like a bar full of sweaty Santas and elves drinking beer before 10am to put a smile on your face. There was much more fun to be had later in the day, but I'll save that for another post and keep this one as a race report post. Great job to everyone who raced yesterday, and I can't wait to see how everyone's races today go.


Rich and I at Southend after the race...still rocking the antlers!


Steph, me Kristen after the race

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome job. I can't believe the antlers didn't fall off or bug you. Congratulations to you and Rich on your PR's. You really rocked your previous times.

Aron said...

awesome job on the PR!!! i had those same shorts on in my race this weekend :)

RunToTheFinish said...

those antlers are amazing!! I totally can't run in anything but my "race outfit" which is so not as much fun. I need to get over that!

Awesome on the pr, that is so exciting.