Jingle All the Way baby! Team "Santa's Little Jinglers" rocked! Thanks to cool guys and of course fastrunningbloggers Ben (Dutch) and Aaron (Running with Pepper)!!! They did awesome!
The morning was chill and sunny - I biked down to the start line and made it exactly in time. Along the way, I thought I saw teammate Tricia - so I yelled out "Tricia!" to which a very confused runner girl who wasn't Tricia replied "Ohio Drive"... I'm not sure how someone could confuse the word "Tricia" with "Where's the start line"? but it was pretty funny.
First to show up was smiling coolboy Aaron, always looking sharp and ready to run a great race no matter what - and he was wearing shorts! The others came by one by one (I had picked up the race packets for 10 other runners) and finally Ben made it, just a few minutes before the start of the race - yes I almost did want to kill you Ben, but I forgive you because you ran such a fast race, and because you are so nice, cute, and brought some very cool friends with you to the post-race party... :) I realized then that I didn't have time to bring my backpack to the bag drop, so I decided to take a chance and lock it as well as I could with my bicycle... Thankfully, it was there when I came back.
The race started nicely - I felt like I was going fast for the first mile, then my shins started to feel tight and I had to slow way down... a lot of people passed me in the next mile. I thought I should slow down and run with the other girls and just enjoy the day, so I didn't worry. Around mile 2.5, my legs were feeling better and I started going a bit faster. By mile 4 I realized I could actually break 50 minutes - so I sped up a bit. By mile 5 I thought maybe I could break 48 - that didn't happen... When I could see the clock, I realized I could make it before 50 - I saw Ben on the side and he cheered me on as I sprinted to the finish line and finished strong at 49:38 - not bad for the training I've had lately, my legs in bad condition, and only a few hours of sleep (it was my birthday last night!)
Celebrated with Aaron, Ben, and Patrick, the first 3 guys in the team - we were able to finish 11th out of 49 teams! Not too bad at all!
After the race I invited all runners and other friends to my place for some food and drinks. It was soooo nice to be able to catch up with old friends, meet new very cool friends, and talk about running, life, and the pursuit of happiness!
Thank you SO VERY VERY MUCH Ben and Aaron for your unbelievable greatness! And thank you to Sasha and the blog for introducing me to such fabulous runners!
Here are some photos of the three bloggers for your viewing pleasure - and yes, they are THAT good looking!
And here is the rest of our team:
Happy Sunday runners! Have a fabulous running week! | 