Frosty 5 Miler – Tradition #8

Frosty Five Miler
Sunday, December 24, 2017
8:30am

This is the second year I’ve done this race sponsored by Western Reserve Racing. It is really nice because it is right downtown Hudson so I don’t have to travel far. This year the weather was 28 degrees and cloudy. We had gotten a dusting of snow the day before so it looked pretty and Christmasy, but the roads were clear. I was determined to to win the ugly sweater contest this year. Here I am in my new blinking sweater. Yes, it is making a encore appearance from the zamboni ride. I also remembered to wear my blinking hat that I got last year. Add some Christmas socks, a tutu that I may or may not have bought at the children’s department at Target years ago and you have an outfit! I had to bust all this out since we missed the jingle bell run this year!

There were over 700 runners participating this year. I eagerly lined up for the ugly sweater contest, but had a lot of competitors. Even Santa showed up! It turns out that my sweater actually would have won the “cutest Christmas sweater” contest as the runner-ups and winners were truly bad. One funny thing happened on my way to the race. No seriously. A complete stranger offered to give me a hug. Of course at first I forgot that my sweater had “hug me” on it so I gave him a weird look until he reminded me that my sweater said “hug me”. Duh.

I ran into a few people I knew so that was fun. The run itself was uneventful. I was too hot with 3 layers on. I took my gator and gloves off after mile 1. I felt challenged running this morning. I haven’t run outside for awhile and when I run the treadmill I usually don’t set an incline so I wasn’t really prepared for the hills. I could totally tell this during this race! I walked a bit during it. I was about 3 minutes slower than last year, but it was just fun to get out there.