Snowman Shuffle

The SNOWMAN SHUFFLE 5K was held last Saturday. The weather was a little chilly, but right before the race the sun came out in all it's glory and really warmed things up. It was no comparison to last year when we ran in a flippin' blizzard! This year was so much better.
They had approximately 140 runners. I was happy that I got 2nd in my age division. 42nd overall. But disappointed that I ran 14 seconds faster last year. My time was 27:52. Last year it was 27.38. With the conditions being so much better I thought I would be faster this year. But I guess it makes a big difference in my training. I haven't been running as much this past month as I usually do and it takes it toll. I have had a harder time climatizing this year for some reason. I do not enjoy going out in the bitter cold at all!


This year I paced myself much better than last year. Last year I started out fast thinking I could maintain that pace the entire race. I was wrong. I had to slow down and even walk for a short distance, which is taboo for me. I really had a hard time getting back into my grove after that. This year I started out even more slowly than I normally do because I wanted to conserve some energy for the big hill. I maintained that pace pretty much the entire route. I did push it down the hill to make up for lost time going up the blasted thing, and I got a killer side ache about a half mile into it, but was able to relieve it after about another half mile.

Ready to run!

Here we are with this year's sweatshirts. They are much cuter than last years, but I wish they would make them in women's sizes instead of just mens!

Julie crossing the finish line in all her elf-dom.

Here I am accepting my 2nd place ribbon. Last year I didn't even place in the top three. So even though I was 14 seconds under last year, I was happy. They also widened our age range this year due to the large number of runners. There was a span of seven years in my category. I didn't beat my record, but I still placed.

Mike, Andrew, and Neil also ran it. I was bummed because Andrew and Niel's time was better than mine this race and I always finish before they do. I think they have been training harder!

Cheese!

All in all it was a fun run. I am pretty sure the weather will never be better for this run than it was this year. We were all shedding our jackets before the finish line and there were several runners in shorts and tank tops. Pretty unusual for a Utah December run! My lungs weren't even burning this year running up the very steep and very long killer hill! Can't wait until next year... or can I?