Jingle Bell 5K – Dallas

This was a Wednesday night run in downtown Dallas.  I was flying out bright-n-early Thursday morning and figured this would be a good race to run right before leaving and see some of the running friends.  I got lucky and one of my friends knew a promo code, so this race was completely free.  Score!  I didn’t know how popular it was, they have an untimed  and a timed option.  The weather was crazy warm for a Jingle Bell run.  It was in the upper 70s and humid. 

It took placed in the Hilton Anatole which was all decked out for the holidays.  There were tons of families, strollers and dogs.  Parking was a bit of a hassle so I was glad I got down there pretty early.  It gave me plenty of time to check out the decorations and wander around the start to find friends. 

My main focus for the past few months has been building up the longer runs and back-to-back running.  I have only ran 1 5K in the past 6+ months, so needless to say I had no expectations.  I was hoping to keep an 8 minute pace.  Started off too fast (as always) and quickly settled down.  They had clocks at each mile point and the first 2 miles went pretty well.  The third mile was a bit of a struggle.  I kept thinking I had covered more ground than I had.  At one point I looked at my watch and I was only at 2.3 miles and I could have sworn I was at least past the 2.6 mile mark.  I just kept pushing and finished with a 23:37.  A whole 2 second PR.  I was pretty shocked because I didn’t expect to be close a PR.

I ran a 7:28, 7:40 & 7:42 with a 7:24 pace to finish.  Relatively consistent for me at a short race.  Good enough for 7^th place in my age group out of 70 people.  I will take it!  It is a flat course and I had fun running at night.  However it is kind of a mess at the start.  I think they should start the untimed participants a few minutes later to avoid some of the congestion. 

Afterwards you can hang out in the ballroom for free pizza, beer, and other treats!  They have music and fun.  Then it was home to finish packing and head to Illinois in the morning.