It's Sunday...Must be Race Day!
Wow am I tired...but it was a good day.

Got up way too early to go to Seattle and run in the Jingle Bell Run to support the Arthritis Foundation. I love runs where it's just a party the entire time. We got there and there was music, lots of freebies, and lots of people in costumes. When I heard 10,000 people were running, I gave up all hope of hitting a personal best. This weekend there were Jingle Bell Runs going on all over the country, but Seattle has the biggest one.

We parked and decided to warm up by running to the site. We were parked about half a mile away and it was cold with a capital C! We ran down the sidewalk laughing and up ahead of us was a little flock of pigeons. I was running through saying "Scuse me guys...pardon me...scuse me" and this one pigeon was just sauntering out of my way and damned if I didn't almost step on the little bugger! I almost fell down because he would NOT move! A guy coming our way just started laughing and the pigeon flipped me off. I swear! I was given the bird by a bird!

The race started a 9:00 a.m. We were in the Dashers Dashers group which took off second after Rudolphs Runners. We were surrounded by santas, reindeer, snowflakes, ho ho hos, kids, everyone had bells on so it was this nonstop "ching ching ching ching ching". We headed down 5th Avenue, past the Fifth Ave. theater and into the I-90 tunnel. As we passed the Fifth I started singing at the top of my voice, "Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Jingle all the way!!" Roy joined me and soon a few others joined us as well. It was SLOW going because of the size of the crowd, but it was fun.

As we entered the tunnel the jingling got louder and as we hit the center of the tunnel the singing started up again. Imagine thousands of people running and singing Jingle Bells all at the same time! It was magical!

Mile 2 came up really quickly! I guess after the 13 miles on the same route a few weeks ago, this run just seemed to fly by. Running is like that for me, though. Time takes on a whole different "shape" or maybe it's shapeless. It doesn't seem to matter...all that seems to matter is the beautiful sights of the people and the mountains and the water. Damn, we live in a beautiful place! Time loses meaning and I never feel like "Wow, I've been running a long time" or "I have a long time to go." I don't know how to explain it. Running is truly the only time when I feel like I can be completely single minded. I can think. I can talk. I can sing. I can just breathe in the beauty and sights around me. But I can't do all those things at once and I love that.

We turned and started back towards the finish line...mile to go. Ahead of us I saw a running snowflake and said to Roy, "Oh man, look at that flake" in a sarcastic tone of voice...for the fifth time. He rolled his eyes and I proclaimed that the flake joke just got better and better with each telling. About five minutes later we came upon a nasty looking hill and I let out a whoop (because I do stupid things like that) and started yelling, "Hill! Hill! We LOVE hills! Hills rock! C'mon Roy! We're GREAT on hills!" I took off and started passing people yelling "Woo Reindeer!" "Go Santa! Get yer groove on!" "No slacking snowflake!" "WOOO!"

Up ahead I saw three women with matching sweatshirts on. On the back of each shirt was the word "HO"...so of course not one to EVER let a corny joke pass I called back to Roy "Look at those ho's up there!" He looked confused, found what I was referring to and rolled his eyes. I faked laughed and said "I kill myself! That's almost as good as the flake joke!"

He didn't agree. Some people have NO sense of humor!

I love passing people on hills. I don't know why. I just do. I passed at least 40 people on the hill, ran up about a block, then turned around to find Roy. I wasn't going to let him cross the finish line without me this time! I found him and grabbed his sweaty gloved hand. We ran in whooping and hollering (and sharing one more "flake" joke...I tell you, it just doesn't get old). We crossed the finish line, holding hands, with a STELLAR time of 42:03! My timer said 30:59, which was probably closer since it took us quite some time to get to the start line. Hmm, maybe they started the timer with the Rudolph's Runners who left 10 minutes before us. Yeah! Okay that makes sense. I knew we hadn't run for 42 minutes!

Time wasn't too bad considering there were times when we were practically walking because of the crowds.

After the race we grabbed some bagels and lots of diet ice and this really good lemon flavored Talking Rain carbonated 3 calorie water. Teams made their way to the costume judging contest and a little girl who looked like a beautiful snow princess with flowing multicolor gauzy scarves and stars in her hair.

Good run!

Start in the first wave. Second wave moved too slowly and too many people started walking too early. I wasn't looking for a PR, but it would have been nice not to have feared running down small children and stupid people on the route, especially after the pigeon incident.

Bagels and stuff...lots of water...walking around and stretched.


The 10,000 people in front of me.


A very fun race! I'll definitely make this a holiday tradition.