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Jingle Bell 5K for Arthritis NYC

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On Saturday morning, I did my 13th and final race of 2013 – the Jingle Bell 5K for Arthritis in Riverside Park.

The night before, I had a holiday sleepover with my best friend Lael from high school, who lives near the race start. We sipped tea and watched holiday movies on a cold and rainy Friday night.

Luckily, when we woke up Saturday morning the sun was shining, and we got ready for a chilly 5K – Lael’s first race ever!

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Holiday-themed breakfast of champions

At the race start, we met up with my mom and two more friends. And Santa, of course.

The race started 20 minutes late (boo) so we had plenty of time for photo ops and impatient hopping to try to keep our extremities warm!

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Decked out to jingle all the way

I remembered some problems with the course being shorter than 5K last year, so I decided not to race this one for time but to run with Lael, since it was her first race!

(Sure enough, the course measured 2.85 miles…oops?)

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Best friends since 2001

I have to admit, I failed as a running buddy on this one. I pushed Lael way too hard during the first mile, and by the end of the second mile she was losing steam and ready to kill me, and professing her hatred for running. I felt so bad! She’s a dancer so she’s in great shape, but she runs on the treadmill and isn’t used to breathing in the cold air, let alone running up some of the big hills that are in Riverside Park. I had 20/20 hindsight and realized immediately that I should have let her run at whatever pace she wanted, even if I knew she was capable of faster, not at an uncomfortable pace that I wanted to push her to in order to challenge herself. I felt so guilty. That’s no way to instill the love of running in someone!

It’s funny, I would never do that with a coaching client I hadn’t run with before, but just because Lael is my friend of 12 years, I subconsciously felt I knew her running pace and potential without ever having run with her before. Lesson learned! Next time I will make sure to keep the emphasis on FUN and not on time.

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As soon as we stopped running and got some water, she felt better, and promised that she didn’t hate me…just running. ;) I hope I didn’t ruin her forever – maybe I’ll be able to talk her into a warmer-weather 5K, along with a promise that I won’t run with her?

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Rockette-style! We did have bells on our shoes, after all…

And guess who got 2nd place in her age group?

Go Mama!

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Santa was pretty impressed too.

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Do you like holiday-themed races, or do you prefer serious road races?

What was your first race?

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Filed under: Christmas, Holidays, NYC, Race Recaps, Races, Running Tagged: Arthritis Foundation, Christmas, Holiday traditions, Hudson River, Jingle Bell Jog, Riverside Park

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