Trying to beat an old fat guy in a red suit...

Last weekend we ran the PR hosted Run With Santa 5K.  I had done this race last year, and it was a ton of fun for the whole family.   I was running it with Nicolas, Zach said he was going it alone, and JD was going to run with the big boys.  We got there early, hung out with Santa, and met up with some other friends who were running.

 It had been pouring, but it slowed to a light drizzle before race start.  Santa warmed us up and helped us stretch out, and we headed over to the start line. 

The gun went off and Zach was off and running.  We never saw him again until the finish line.  Nic and I were taking it slow and steady.  He ran a really good first mile at right around 9:50.  Then he started to ask if he could walk.  I always struggle with how much to push him and how much to just back off and let him do what he wants.  So we made some bargains like we could walk to the next block and then start running again, or we would run to the next light and take a 15 second walk break.  So we did that method for about one mile.  Once we hit the 2 mile marker, he seemed to perk back up again when I told him we only had a mile to go.  He didn't want to walk as much.  He got really excited when we turned the corner and could see the finish line.  Then he took off sprinting.  He finished right around 38 minutes. 

Zach did a great job finishing just over 31 minutes. 

Nic probably could have run better, but I really wanted him to have fun this race and we did have a good time.  The boys wanted to stick around and run the kids' race (thus my noting that they could have run the 5K harder if they still had energy to run the kids' race) so they lined up for that. 

Both put out a great effort sprinting hard to the finish to grab their medals.  Overall a fun family event that we will likely keep on our calendar.

As I get ready to finish out the racing year, I wanted to post my collage of race shirts in honor of my awesome year.  At the beginning of the year I had set myself a goal of 12 races with 3 over 10 miles and had no thoughts of a marathon.  I ended up running a grand total of 26 races (with one more to go) with 9 at 10+ miles including my first marathon, first age group award, and a 10 mile, half marathon, and 5K PR.