This morning I got up and took myself out into the cold cold world to run a holiday themed 5K. Yeah… a race that was only 36 degrees at the start, that’s cold for my desert-dwelling blood! Plus, the race started at 7 AM. Races in Vegas have to start that early in the warm/hot months… but in the winter? Let us sleep in until 8 and gain a few more degrees! 🙂

All whining aside, it wasn’t that rough. I did do my part to dress up for the holiday theme a little bit… I found some toe socks in the holiday section at Walgreens for $3.99, brought them home and cut off the toes. They didn’t really have spots on them for heels, so all I needed to do was cut straight across right under the toes and VOILA! Holiday leg warmers!

I picked up my race packet the day before, making sure that I got the “beautiful race sweatshirt” that comes with the Las Vegas Running Team events. Just like Catch the Gobbler… it’s a looker!

Don’t forget the back, it’s the same hideousness as the Gobbler sweatshirt.

Funny enough, I was chatting with a woman before the race and she said that she was doing the race just for the shirt… she loves these sweatshirts, “they’re so well made and they don’t shrink!”

The race started at a car dealership, so most people were hanging out inside the showroom before it got going, trying to stay a warm. About 5 minutes before the race was supposed to start, we all stepped outside for the presentation of the colors, national anthem and to line up. As we were lining up I spotted Katy Beth… her antlers and curly hair made it easy to spot her in the crowd!

The race got going and we ran on the most boring course ever… basically we did a one mile loop around the dealership 3 times… they did make us go in another direction at one point to turn around and repeat the loop backwards. Didn’t make it any more thrilling, but whatever!

I decided to be festive and listen to holiday music while I ran. I put the Glee Christmas albums on shuffle. Sadly, that approach didn’t work for me at all. It kept shuffling to slower songs that didn’t motivate my running at all!

The moment I started running I knew I was just not feeling quite up to snuff… just a little wonky. I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately, just a little dizzy and fatigued. I was not running my fastest. I was actually quite surprised to see 28 minutes on the finish clock when I crossed that line… I felt like I was running through mud and really would not have been surprised to have seen 30+.

Due to the parking situation, nobody could leave until everyone was done with the race, so I hung out and ate some orange slices while chatting with people. The topic dujour was the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon/Half Marathon. The second I started chatting with one person about it, many more joined in with their own horror stories of the event.

Soon it was time for the awards ceremony to start. So I hung out thinking perhaps there would be some kind of remote chance they would pull my bib number for a raffle prize. No such luck… but I was shocked to hear them call me as 3rd place in my age group.

LOL! One of my slower 5Ks and I win my first AG award! The chick who came in second only beat me by a second, must have been that girl surging past me at that last second. Good on her for having that push… I sure didn’t!

It was a fun morning, I’m glad I went out and did it. I missed some of my other friends who were initially going to do the race but had to back out due to various illness/injury. Kind of a bummer, but it is what it is. I definitely liked the idea of dressing up a little for the theme! I don’t do that much!

Related articles

• Catch the Gobbler 2011 (jillwillrun.com)
• Team Challenge Sunset Rock ‘n’ Run (jillwillrun.com)
• Coyote Springs Trail Runs (jillwillrun.com)