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10 December, 2006
Santa Claus Shuffle 5K

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to head over to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens to run the Santa Claus Shuffle 5K. The run benefited Children’s Resource Hampton Roads (who sponsors at-risk kids, group homes, etc). It was frigid outside, around 27 or 28 degrees when we ran, which my body did not like very much.

There was a large crowd and a lot of people were festively dressed. An actual elf was in attendance (see foreground above).

I got my race packet, which included a long sleeve tshirt with a Santa on it. I mean it’s a nice shirt, but I don’t really wear Santa shirts. To the gym I guess.

I put on my timing chip and we walked over to the starting line. The crowd was enormous by this time including about three zillion 9 and 10 year old girls wearing matching green shirts. After the race I found out they were from Girls on the Run.

My mom, David, Grace and Maegan all came to cheer me on. They’re the best for getting up early on a Saturday and standing in the freezing cold while I finished the race. I bet they were wishing I’d taken up another sport. Something indoors, like poker tournaments. Or at least that I was one of the 18 minute finishers.

At 9:45 we started. I started way at the back. With the little kids. Most of them passed me.

I wish I were kidding. Sadly, I’m not. (You can see me in this pic if you look.) At one point there was what appeared to be a five-year old girl in a santa hat and a red tutu that was running in front of me. Every time she’d stop to take a walk break, I’d pass her, and apparently that was just the incentive she needed to get a burst of energy and PASS ME AGAIN. Yeah, it’s cool getting passed by a five-year-old. All that training is paying off.

Oh yeah, that’s her. The course was really pretty and wound all through the gardens. Unfortunately it was so crowded on the little paths that I either kept getting run off the road, or the pavement was really uneven and cracked from tree roots (really surprised I didn’t trip), and when I did want to pass someone, the crowd was so thick that I couldn’t.

Mile one I think was like 12:30 something. Mile 2 was 25:42. Since I was running near the little kids, through about 2 miles of the race I got to hear their (extremely hot) coach yell out things like, “Alright girl, you are doing great! Keep movin! Lookin good! Girl, you’re faster than me!” It was great, and I just pretended he was talking to me the whole time. About mile 2.5, I lost them (I finally passed someone!) and simultaneously got a really bad cramp. I blame my cheerleader being too slow. No cheers=cramps. The cramp got bad and I had to walk for about a minute, which made me really aggravated, but I figured I’d still beat my time by at least a minute or two, at the rate I was going. Also both shoes came untied which I had to stop and fix. I need longer laces or something.

By this time I was really hot and wished that I had gone with my instinct and not pinned my number to my hoodie, cause I couldn’t take it off without stopping, which I didn’t want to do again. I headed up the bridge, saw the 3 mile marker and started sprinting. I ran really hard the last .2 and only beat my previous 5K time by a few seconds. A disappointing 39:46 or something like that. I was second to last in my age group, booooo. PS thanks to the dude that cut in front of me right at the finish line (totally unnecessary, there was plenty of room). The finish line photo of me is covered with his big head.

I didn’t even win the Gwaltney ham they were raffling off, which was the real reason I was there, obviously. Also, there was no “best looking runner” prize given out at the end. I was clearly robbed.

I had a good time though and I’m glad I did it, even though it wasn’t the smoothest race in the world. Next report should be January 10th, for the Distance Series 10K. I’ll be running all the Distance Series races, they’re setup to coincide with the marathon/half marathon training for Shamrock in March.

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