Forever Striding: Jingling All the Way

This morning I ran the Jingle All the Way 8K, but I almost didn't make it to the start.

Last night I set out all of my race gear, packed my bag to check, and set my alarm. Or so I thought. 8 hours later, a phone call from Emily woke me up. She was wondering where I was because we'd agreed to meet 40 minutes before the start and I was nowhere to be found. As it turns out, my alarm was set for the wrong day. I leapt out of bed, threw on my gear, and ran out the door. I made it to gear check with 15 minutes to spare.

The forecast called for a cool, rainy morning, but it was overcast and in the mid-50s before the race. The race started 10 minutes late, but no one seemed to mind. We were too busy checking out everyone's holiday-themed outfits.

Lots of santa hats and antlers at the start

I have to give the other runners a lot of credit because most people started in the appropriate area for their pace. We didn't have many slower runners blocking our way and also didn't have many faster runners blowing by us. Emily and I kept a slow, steady pace, somewhere in the neighborhood of 9:55, through the first 4 miles. The race had a bunch of double-backs, which I usually despise, but they gave us an opportunity to spot our friends and people-watch. Some highlights were a menorah hat, juggling santa, and group of runners in bunny-print onesies.

I decided to push things harder the last mile and was able to drop about 20 seconds off of my overall pace per mile. I attribute a lot of that to the all-out sprint I started as I heard the Cupid Shuffle approaching the finish line. Unfortunately, no one was dancing.

Sweaty reindeer at the finish

I found Emily and we headed off to meet some friends and American Odyssey/Ragnar teammates at brunch. When we got there I noticed two of our AOR teammates were also wearing their race shirts and had to snap a photo.