Jingle Bell Run

This weekend has, so far, been pretty crazy. I finished a 50 PAGE paper for my grad class. It has been sucking the soul out of me since we got home from Disney. No one should have to write that much for this measly graduate degree.

Onto better things: I also ran a Jingle Bell 5K this morning with my friend, Jen. We got into the spirit:

Our outfits were actually pretty tame compared to some of the people running with us - we saw people with entire Christmas trees on them, people wrapped as gifts, Santa suits, and lots of four-legged friends running with antlers. We were given jingle bells to put on our shoe laces - it was actually pretty funny hearing all of them as we ran, though it made a kind of obstacle course once they started falling off the shoes. We had PERFECT weather - 55 and sunny! - and got to run downtown, right along the river. Christmas music was blaring. It was just a great time. And, to top it all off, we completed our race in under 28 minutes!!! We were shocked when we arrived at the finish line and saw that number. I wondered why I felt more like dying during this race - I can run 6 miles on the treadmill with no problems, and I ran our last 5K pretty easily. We were moving at a pace that took 5 minutes off of our time! So much for jogging along. I'm proud of us, though.

To celebrate, I will be watching a movie with a bottle of wine this evening. No more homework until January's class starts, a good race this morning - I'd say I've earned it!