2011 Jingle Bell Run KC Race Report

It was 10 below, 5 foot snow drifts, but my family and I were determined to race for the Arthritis Foundation...
Ok,  it was more like mid 30's, sorta cloudy and not really that bad with no snow.  The beauty part was that the race was at 9am and in caves!

The 2011 Jingle Bell Run was in the Meritex Enterprises complex in Lenexa, KS.  It's a awesome race when it's freezing, but you're racing in 68 degrees and pretty much flat as a pancake course over 2 laps underground.

That's what I set my goal to try and get under 20 minutes for a 5k.  I think my PR is around 22 or 23 minutes.  That was probably 2 or 3 years ago as I don't often run 5k's.

I crammed in the supplements and vitamins my wife has scheduled for me (waiting on some items from SIX Nutrition) and ate some oatmeal for the pre-race.  It's odd to be up relatively late on a race day.  It was also "stressful" to pack up the kiddos and take them as well.  Em was walking the fun walk with the kids in their double stroller.  You never know what's going to happen when you're packing kids.  Wild cards...

Like I said, my goal was sub 20 minutes and trying to round up kids and get going was a little stressful, but with the course around 4 miles from our house and we took the back way, we had no issues getting good parking and there with plenty of time.

I do wish they had a few more port-a-potties as the line was getting rather long.  Had a semi-stressed bladder to start the run.  Seeing that I was hopefully out there for only 20 minutes, I dealt with the pain.

I laced up the Bolt Faas 400's I have from Puma in conjunction with the Heartland 39.3 race series.  They're light and fast.  It's like wearing a sock with some cushion.

My trusty Garmin 301XT clocked me at mile one around 6:30, and after that it was a hodge podge since I didn't see a mile 2 or 3 marker.  I had the ticking overall time, but no real sense of distance left or overall pace.  After mile one, I could feel the stress in my quads and it wasn't really my aerobic fitness in question.  I tried to will my legs to go faster and was able to keep relatively good pace, and I think I passed more people than passed me.  That's a big deal since I started towards the front to avoid the walkers and strollers.

My Garmin clocked me in at 21:20.  Not exactly my goal, but still speedy under 7 minute miles.

I followed that up by running another loop to try and catch Em and the kids and come to find out Em ran most of the course and our 3 year old ran almost a mile a full speed.  Future runner in the making!

Overall it was a good time.  It was more of a after thought to add the race, but it's more fun to run a 5k event than slog out a run at home in the cold.  Know what I mean?

I also received $75 in donations for the run!  Thanks to all that donated!  That was short of my $150 goal, but you can still donate HERE if you want to help me get there.  ;)

Hopefully pictures to come this week.