This past Sunday, I got the opportunity to run my first race out of state at the Portland Jingle Bell 5k! It was a very well organized small race that was an out and back along the water front in Portland. I wore a long sleeve Nike shirt underneath my jacket and long Lucy pants. I was really nervous that I would be too cold, but I wasn’t at all! I also wore my Monkey Beanie to the start line, but traded it in for my North Face headband/ear warmers for the run as the beanie would have gotten too hot. I also made sure to wear my Adidas running gloves because I didn’t want my fingers to get too cold.

It was about 43 degrees at the start line, which is a little chilly for me but I was ready to go and got excited as I haven’t run a race in a long time. I ended up lining up pretty close to the front of the pack. There were a lot of runners there, but it was a relatively small race.

Behind me, the line was quite packed, but there were a lot of walkers, that gathered on the other side of the fence and then started after the runners.

In front of me was the lovely starting line! I was right in there by the 7-8 minute per mile sign, but I should have probably moved back a ways into the pack. It just was kind of where I fit in with the crowd and I just went with it. After a few minutes of waiting, we were off! It was a great route and I caught myself looking up often at all the buildings around us and over at the water front. I wish I got more pictures, but with my iphone shoved deep into my pockets and my mittens on it was really hard to get it out to take any pictures so I didn’t get any. Before I knew it we were at the 1.5 mile turn around and we were on our way back in.

I was cruising along and enjoying the race. The first 1.5 miles were pretty slow and I felt like my body was warming up. As soon as we hit mile 2, I was off and feeling good, then the race was over. HA!

It seemed like the race just started and I was already heading towards the finish line! It was a really fun race  and even though I was battling a cold throughout the week, I only had a little bit of a runny nose while running, which wasn’t too bad.  Here’s the official stats.  I finished in 25:37, was 239 overall, 76th in Women and 12th in my age division of 25-29. GAH, my first race in the 25-29 age division! That puts me at 8:14 per mile pace. I think my first 1.5 miles were slower and I picked it up during the last portion of the race. I haven’t run a short race in a long time, and man, I’m reminded after that 5k that I need to get my butt back into training land! I wasn’t winded or anything after the race but I need to start putting in the miles to get my base back up and ready for the halfs I want to take on… like the one AT THE END OF THIS MONTH!

xoxo