Snowman Shuffle 5K

On Saturday, I ran my first race of the shiny new year.

It was the Snowman Shuffle. This is the third time I've run this race. And the slowest, but I'm not focusing on that. Starting this year, I'm going to stop being so hard on myself.

The race started at 9:30am. Barbie, Shanna, Barbie's nephew Jordan and I rode down together. When I woke up, I considered calling Barbie and telling her that I was sick. That is how much I was dreading this race. We left my house at 8am. That is the latest start for a race in a looong time, and I needed it. Having so many days off work the last couple of weeks has caused me to turn my days and nights around more than I should.

I hadn't ran at all since the Jingle Bell Run on Dec 6, so I was just content to be getting out there and running.

Despite sitting on the charger all night, my Garmin told me that the battery was low before the race. I did the only thing I could at that point. I grounded it for being a bad boy and left it in the car. I enjoyed running the race without staring (obsessing) at the numbers. There was a runner just ahead of me who was obviously coaching a first-time runner (his wife?). At about the one mile mark, he turned around and started cheering for me as well. It really does help to have support. When they stopped for water, I went past them and didn't see them again until the end. The second mile was ENDLESS. At that point, I knew that my friends were probably already finished. As I got closer, I started seeing people I knew jogging back out. It really did help to have them shouting my name and cheering for me. I finished in 33:13. I'm not going to say anything about that time. I finished, and I'm happy for it.

Last year, I won first place in my age group, but I've turned 35 now and moved up to a tougher group. There were about 150 runners in the race, so I was certain that I hadn't placed. My friends had, so we stuck around for the results.

Shanna won overall for women in 20:31
Jordan won his age group in 18:36
Barbie won 2nd in her age group in 23:47
AND, I won 3rd in my age group!!
AND, there were more than 3 people in my age group. :)

Since we had the young'uns with us, there was no wine. We let them pick our lunch destination, so it was pasta for lunch instead of Mexican. Ah, well. When it was all said and done, I was glad I went. Maybe 2009 really is my year.