Christmas lights at warp speed!

I think since I got y'all through Thanksgiving, that's close enough to be caught up to present day!

That, and I just KNOW y'all have been waiting to hear about the 5k I'd been training for. What do you mean, you almost forgot all about that...? Really?? Wow, OK, that's just not right! I mean...really..have I not complained enough to have the event burned into your brain??? LOL!!!

So, I did it.

Actually, WE did it. I had indicated to A-Dog that he would likely be running it with me. I didn't want to do it alone and I didn't have time to interview other runners. I certainly didn't want someone who was going to totally smoke me, nor did I want someone I would have to pull the entire way. And then, as a last minute decision, my sister-in-law decided to do it too!


Pre-run excitement!

And we finished the entire race.

Or, all of it that was there. There was a slight course change apparently.

See, there was about 500 people running through a neighborhood decorated with beautiful Christmas lights. Dodging the people walking through, the horses carrying the huge trailers of people and sometimes a little special something that the horses left behind.


Group 1 heading to the starting line. (we were in group 2 - who caught the lights wrong or our group would have been Group 1)

 I guess that somewhere along the way, the first group that went thru took a wrong turn.

We were told during our pre-run information meeting (which was actually some guy standing on the tailgate of a little Toyota pick-up truck yelling in a bull horn) that there would be NO WAY we would get lost because there were these little wooden(?) trees along the road sequentially numbered so if we could count in order, we would be good to go!

This was good news for the 3 of us because A-Dog is NOT very good at directions. At all. I mean, really, it's bad. He can barely read printed out directions much less have any clue what-so-ever regarding a neighborhood he's not familiar with.

I did however, grab my phone back from my sweet husband, just in case. Of course, the bull horn guy said he had a bunch of maps...on his counter at home.

We made sure that we were always with a group of runners, so we didn't make a wrong turn. I estimate we were running about 6:30 per kilometer, trying to look at the houses as we raced by.

(as a side note, this is a much better way to get through the neighborhood than walking. However, we did note that bike and roller blades were even faster but refused to give in to the thought of cheating next year)

We kept a keen eye out for the little trees marked with sequential numbers...which I'm pretty sure that the guy on roller blades went thru and removed because we NEVER SAW A SINGLE ONE.

So, by my calculation it was only about 4.5k instead of the 5k it was supposed to be thanks to the lead group botching the course.

Either way, this little fun run WAS fun!  The 3 of us running had a blast and our supporters were awesome and gave us a good cheer as we ran by them toward the end.

And yes, I will be doing another one. In January. Crazy I know.

But to have these 2 cheering me on....it will be worth it!



Mini P, Agent P and Me