Freezing my jingle bells off!

Immediately after the marathon we started talking about doing some smaller races on a regular basis, but it took us a while to kind of settle on a race and make the effort to sign up.  There was one on my birthday at the end of October, but it was kind of soon after the marathon and we had other things planned for that day.  And there was the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving but Kourt and I both had to work.

So we signed up for the Jingle Bell Run.  My sister signed the three of us up and I didn't think a whole lot about it until yesterday, when we went to pick up our packets.  Got a nice long sleeved shirt, and they had jingle bells for us (which was good, because we totally procrastinated on the "deck yourself out in holiday gear for the run" part).

When we got up this morning, it was 17 degrees out.  I've never run in weather that cold.  I put on the long sleeved shirt under my Chicago Marathon tee and then a hoodie over that, plus my earwarmer hat and a pair of gloves and hoped that would be warm enough.  After all, it was only three miles and I was hoping it would be closer to the 30s by the time we started.

But no, it was somewhere around 22 degrees at race time.  The first part of the route was all uphill and breathing in the sub-freezing air made it really hard to run.  In the sun it wasn't too bad, but in shade it was seriously uncomfortably cold.  Still, though, realizing that the sooner you get to the finish line the sooner you can feel heat is a pretty good motivator.  I walked more than I wanted and didn't make my best time ever, but after all was said and done it was still pretty fun and my time wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.  I even beat my sister across the finish line!

And then we went to IHOP and ate pancakes. :)