The Santa 5K Run

It's that time of year for holiday posts and I will be posting a few. Some running related and others not so much. I've also been debating about starting a new blog that is separate from my running adventures that are just family related. This blog reached its max recently of photo capacity and so I frantically started deleting everything I had already made a blog book out of from 2008 and 2009. But now I'm not so sure I want to keep doing that.  My 2010 blog book is here with all of the posts about my precious son Porter who passed away that year in that tragic hiking accident that is constantly there in the back of my mind.  I'm pretty sure my running has helped me cope with his loss.  It's so often as I'm running I get to just think about him, so to just delete all those posts from 2010 just doesn't seem right for me, yet. Even though I now have them in a big hard bound book.  Anyway, on to this post about running and the holidays.

This is Joe, my Cousins husband who is a race director in Utah and does about 8 big races a year.  I ran his Midnight Legacy Run this last Summer up on the Legacy Parkway Trail and had a fabulous time.  For the Provo Santa 5K run he asked if I would wear his Go Pro camera on my head while I ran.  This he would use as he creates the promotional video for next year's Santa Runs.  He does three of them in the state. I'm kind of excited to see what his video will be like and if any of my filming while running paid off.

I arrived about a half hour before the race started and got my outfit on and the camera turned on.  I didn't know how to operate it very well so I just told Joe to turn it on and leave it on so I didn't mess up anything.

As the Santa runners were gathering I just meandered around the crowd trying to film people just being themselves.  When it came closer to race time I stood right at the starting line about thirty feet in front of everyone in the middle of the street backwards and let them run by me so I could film them wizzing by.  Joe warned them on his loudspeaker to not trample me as they ran by.  Yeah, that was a pretty scary feeling to be rushed at by 900 Santas.

Do any of you own one of these little gadgets?  I'm sure they are a pretty fun little toy but I'm here to tell you they squeezed the who-knows-what out of my brains.  About mile 2 into the race my head was hurting and I had to do a little adjusting to somehow stop the squeezing.  It didn't work too well.  By about mile 2.75 I couldn't wait to get this thing off of me, but I was given an assignment and I was going to complete it. 

Yup, this is getting near the end of the race and I was over-dressed, over-heated, and over-squeezed.  I did have a fabulous time though running back and forth throughout the crowd and telling people to do something fun for the camera as they were running.  When I got to the finish line I couldn't believe that 3 miles was already over.  A 5K just seems so short when compared to half marathons.  I wasn't ready to be done and so I didn't run through the chute, instead I turned around and headed back out on the course so that I could keep filming people.  My final time which really didn't matter one bit this time because of the fun assignment I had was 38:22.  I came in to the finish line area where I enjoyed some hot chocolate, chips, and a visit with my very fun Uncle Arden.  This is my cousins daddy and he was hear helping out with the race as well. 

The course was a one mile loop that we went around three times and then a short little turn down the street and around a corner to the finish line area.  I have never run a loop course before and so this was a fun experience because I never knew where I was as far as standings go.  There were always people in front and me and behind me and I never felt like I was near last place, like some races I have run. I guess I just can't help it if I'm a slow runner.  And I guess I shouldn't care but I sort of do.  For now it's about enjoying the experiences.