10 days and three 5Ks. The family that the runs together…

The family that runs together… spends a lot of money on shoes (and entry fees)!  Am I right??  Oh yes.

Today is the last of 10 glorious days off work for me.  I’ve enjoyed the time off work, but I didn’t get through nearly as many things on my To Do list as I thought I would!  The kids were home from school this past week too, so we’ve done a lot of things to kick off the holiday season and get the house decorated, and run errands and go to Dr’s appointments!

I didn’t even notice this until last night, but my 10 days were actually filled with three 5K races!!  What the heck, three??  We started with a family fun event which was a prediction run.  It was the Toledo Roadrunners Turkey Trot 5K or 10K.  We opted for the 5K.  🙂  My family thought we were going to be busting out a 27:00 or 26:00 on this race, so we all ran together and predicted our times staggered around those times, but I knew that the course was hilly, and if I’m just “going for a run” I was going to be close to a 9:00 min mile.

We ended up with a pace of 27:58, and with being a minute off our prediction, no turkey winning for us.  But we did get out there and run in the chill as a family, and had some delicious donuts and hot chocolate.  That’s a win for sure!!

The next family running event was the 4th annual Wrenwood Turkey Trot.  That’s my neighborhood race!  We live in an awesome neighborhood with runners a plenty.  Just look at the turnout!  There are several other running families that didn’t make it that morning.  I think it’s a fun fact that my neighborhood is exactly 5K if I run down all of the streets in it!

I remember the first year it happened I didn’t know about it, and I watched my neighbor runners race past from my house window.  I’m pretty sure I had a sad frown on my face 🙁  Luckily my friend remembered my invite the next years and we have been attending ever since.

Last night we all ran in the Holiday Hustle.  A fun “dress up” 5K which starts right when it is sunset, and by the time we finish it’s dark out.  We finish down the main street of our town, which is all lit up with Christmas lights.  Right after the race they have the holiday parade, but we’re usually too cold to stick around and watch it, but we have in the past and it’s a really good parade (with Santa’s arrival of course!).

In the past years Alan and I have partnered up with either Sydney or Zach and ran as pairs, but now the kids are speedy and we just tag along or do our own thing.  Sydney was first in our group at 23:37, and I ran a *surprising* 25:49!  And this year, luckily my speedier friends aged up, so I got first in my age group!  Woot!!!  This was actually only 10 seconds slower than I had ever got on this course (this was our 5th year running it), so I was very pleased with my performance.  We got ornament awards.  Zach ran with Alan had a great time of 26:41, but had a competitive age group, so no award for him.

Annnnnnnnnnd…. looking at my calendar, I have ONE more 5K to run in a week.  It’s the Miracle on Main Street 5K!  That is another race which kicks off the holiday season with the race before the holiday parade.  I got my PR there last year.  I really don’t think I’ll be busting out that again this year,  BUT who knows, I could get another Christmas Miracle!! 🙂 🙂

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Q:  Did you have a good Thanksgiving holiday?   Did you eat turkey??

I personally prefer ham over turkey, but we cooked a big turkey so we’ve been having lots of leftovers!

Q:  Are you a fan of 5K’s?

(me, finding it very exhausting.  PHEW!!!!!!!!)

Q: Did you participate in any holiday running events this week?