Monday, December 24th, 2007
This morning I ran in the Somerville Jingle Bell 5k that was rescheduled from last week after the snow storm. I was a little worried that the cold rain would come early, but it turned out to be the perfect weather (at least in comparison the rest of the cold/rainy/snowy shit that we have had lately).
I took a short walk from my apartment to the starting line. I LOVE that the race was so close to my house. It made the whole “making sure I get to the starting line on time” stress situation non-existent. 
There were all sorts of crazy outfits and Sam (my official race photographer and cheerleader) grabbed a few pics. There was a pretty sweet moose hat with big antlers that I spotted. I hope I get it for Christmas! I do have a thing for mooses…
It was pretty warm out (mid 40s), so I just had a lightweight jacket, wicking long sleeve t-shirt, tri shorts, knee warmers and some thin running gloves. I got pretty warm about two miles in and had to unzip my top and pack away the gloves in my back pocket.
I didn’t have too high expectations since I have not been running nearly as much as I had planned on leading up to this race. I would have been happy if I landed somewhere between the 25-26 minute range (depending on how many people ended up running race and I had to dodge). I was able to slowly pick out different packs of runners to help me keep at a pretty consistent pace and to slowly catch up to some faster people towards the end.
It was a relatively flat course, but there were a few small hills and bridges along the way. I’m not sure what it was, but I felt like I was able to just plow right trough them and overtake a few runners every time. While my pace wasn’t all that hot, and could’ve much better if I actually trained more, I felt like all of the spinning I’ve been doing lately has really helped a lot in powering through the hills.
My time (at least according to my watch) was 24:54. I was pretty psyched. It wasn’t the fastest 5k ever, but decent compared to my training time.
Also, I had been having a big problem getting blisters along the arch of my foot on a few of the last runs I’ve gone on, but tried some new running socks (and have now sworn off of ever running in the standard thick white socks) and will only run/bike in real running socks from now on. Check ‘em out at The Sock Guy. They may cost a few extra bucks, but knowing my feet will be comfortable and won’t be all torn up and raw after a few miles out on the road is more than worth it. This was the first time sporting this particular pair, so they definitely deserve some more testing, but I was SO happy with them after today’s race since just about every other pair of socks in my top drawer has been giving me problems lately for watever reason.
Max HR: 192
Avg HR: 176
Next Goal: Sub 21:00 5k
I should be able to pull that off in 2008, right? I just have to get my ass out the door and actually put some more miles in.
Tags: 5k, davis square, jingle bell, Running, somerville | Posted in Race Reports, Running | No Comments »
