Jingle All The Way

I went for a really great brunch - I mean run - today. My friend and I ran her first ever 10k (and my...umm, not first) and we had a great time. We ran the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis research this morning at 10am, skipping out on church and family for a little "girl time" (I know I know - not many of you would consider a 10k run *fun* girl time - bear with me).

This is my new shirt which I proudly did not wear while running (because everyone knows you don't actually wear the shirt on event day...) - apparently though not everyone knows this *rule* and we were in amidst a sea of very bright red. And reindeers. And santas. And one Raggedy Anne. Surprisingly, no Christmas Trees this year. It's an event that you're encouraged to "dress up" for. We didn't. Because we're too cool. Or boring.
I should also confess that we did not actually "jingle" while we ran, because nothing annoys me more than hearing a jingle bell with every other stride. And having it flop around on my shoe. I know, I'm lame.

Berry Baby likes my new shirt too.

These are my brand new runners, which will hopefully solve the "feet-constantly-aching" problem I've been having. I wore them today and I'm pretty sure they helped me run faster. Which was good because my friend might otherwise have gotten ahead of me. Which would be embarrassing, since I've been running waaaay longer than her. I need to be faster than SOMEONE for heavens sake. I'm not complaining - she makes a really good running partner as we're pretty much the same pace, and she pushes me mentally when I would probably want to stop and throw up, but I can't because SHE isn't stopping OR throwing up. Nothing like a little peer pressure to get you throught the last 2Km.

This is my race bib - I keep them. They're the one thing that I collect (I'm not a collector, unlike Berry Guy and Berry Boy, who like to keep everything, just in case...) and I like to write the date, event, and my time on each bib. We finished in 1:01:52, according to my watch. Not too shabby, although not my best, but I'm willing to save a PR for next year. And, I don't really think I could have run it any faster. As it was, there was a point after the 5K turnaround when my arms felt like cement for about 1Km (that makes it hard to run). Also, we hit that 2Km-to-go point and unconsciously started going faster because we were almost done. It's a psychological thing, apparently (according to Runner's World) that you speed up toward the end because you know it will be over soon...unfortunately it also makes you want to throw up or pass out, especially when you stop. Of course, I couldn't slow down because my friend wasn't slowing down, and it was her first 10K and not mine, and for heaven's sake I couldn't let her beat me. I'd much rather throw up. Which I didn't. I just wanted to for a split second or two.

Anyhow, this particular race throws a really great brunch following the run - they serve up bagels, fruit, scrambled eggs and breakfast sausages. I love breakfast sausages. They're so warm and greasy and salty. I do this particular run mostly for the food.

We enjoyed the brunch, she won a door prize (loser - but I forgive her because I recently won the 100th give-away at The Runs from Suzy. I got a sweet pair of panties...my friend got an oversized t-shirt. I think I came out ahead on that one.), and we hit Starbucks on the way home for a triple-grande-caramel-macchiato-halfsweet-extrahot. I really like ordering that. It sounds really cool to say. And they have to check off lots of boxes on my cup. I usually also get it lowfat, but today I splurged on regular milk, which isn't as much of a splurge anymore because they've switched from whole milk to 2% as their default. apparently.

It was a great day. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to knock back a Tylenol or two before bed. I'm a little sore.