A Girl on the Run at the Reindeer Romp 5k

Dear Reindeer Romp,
I could not be more in love with you.  Please expect to see Cindy and I back next year, pounding your pavement.
Sincerely,
Jill











Seriously, guys, this was one of my most favorite races to date.*   We took off from Main Street amidst falling snow flurries (machine made).  There were more than 1500 runners and A LOT of them were Girls on the Run** and their dads.

We turned off of Main Street after one block, turned past Saturday Bike and Run, which is where I take my bike for service, and headed up Oakland Ave.

Oakland Ave runs from downtown Rock Hill past the college where I have lived, studied, worked and worked out for the past 14 years.  This is my home.

We turned off of Oakland Avenue onto a side street that led us past the nice houses that surround the university.   It was about this time that I first said to Cindy, "I AM LOVING THIS!"

When my Nike + (this is an app on my iphone that measures your distance via GPS) alerted me that we had made it one mile, Cindy and I started talking about taking our first walk break.  That's right, we had run the whole first mile, and we were doing awesome. We walked a minute and then went right back to running.

We wound out of the neighborhood, coming out right in front of Tillman Hall, the building where I work.  This might have been the second time I screamed something about loving this race.   We headed down Oakland and turned into campus at our beautiful main entrance.  There was the water stop.  Cindy was a few steps ahead of me, and I yelled to her that I was not going to stop for water.

Just then I heard someone yelling my name and turned to see two of my favorite high school seniors, Jessi and Jenna, handing out water at the water station! I had no idea they were going to be there.  I was so excited to see them and pumped that I was running good when they saw me. (Jenna said later it looked like I was sprinting...that's just how I run, Jenna.  But really, it just looked like I was going fast because everyone else was slowing down to stop for water.)

We made the loop around our auditorium and that's when I started getting really excited.  I pointed out to Cindy some of the important-to-me buildings. I said, "THIS IS WHERE I LIVE!"  I was really getting into it.***  Also, campus police officers were stopping traffic so it was fun to see more people I know, even though I didn't get to speak to them.

Cindy and I color coordinated for the Christmas race.

We headed out past Tillman and back onto Oakland for the return trip downtown.  We walked several more times, but always in really short spurts. Cindy and I make really great running partners because neither of us lets the other give up. We have pretty similar running abilities, so we understand how the other runs.

We walked up one side of the bridge that leads downtown. We decided to run the downhill side and keep running to the finish. It was probably about a half mile left to go.  I wanted to give up, but I was keeping an eye on my time via my phone.  I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to be faster than my first 5k race in April 2010, so I kept moving and even pushed to go harder. I crossed the line amidst more snow flurries at 35:15, about 20 seconds faster than that first race.  I was so glad.

Bonnie did not appreciate
the antlers.

Post race, pro-antlers

Another reason this race was awesome was that every runner got reindeer antlers in their goody bag. Most people ran with them, but Cindy and I stuck with our Santa hats.  Good thing, because most people ended up taking them off and holding them the rest of the race.





Afterwards, I wandered through all of the amazing, county-fair like street food vendors. I started thinking that I deserved a treat and almost walked over to the ATM to get cash to buy some fried Oreos or Snickers (I've never had them, have you?), but I decided to just go home.  But I was famished so I made this homemade pizza with spinach and pepperoni. Yum. A good day.

*Despite the fact that they had no timing system or even mile markers??. C'mon Rock Hill, let'st step it up a notch and try and look like we know what we're doing.


**This made for an interesting addition to the race.  A lot of the girls ran with their dads.  One thing I learned, dads and small girls are almost never the same pace.  Either the dads were dragging and being left in the dust by their daughters and looking like they'd rather be at home watching football, or the girls were tired of running and the dads were jogging in front of them backwards doing everything they could to coax them to keep moving.


***I'm sure my enthusiasm doesn't make sense to you, I can't really explain it. It was part race day adrenaline and part knowing that I know the streets around campus so well, and I've run them a million times. It was kind of thrilling.