Reindeer Run 5k - quite surprised actually

In preparation for our LA trip, we scheduled a few races strategically into our plan. The first one was to be the Reindeer Run 5k last Friday night. The week leading up to it was set to be a challenging one with a 7 mile tempo run on Tuesday just a few days before the race. We usually do workouts on Wednesday mornings but I made a change to have our workouts actually be on Tuesday afternoons so that we might be able to complete some of them with at least some daylight. Our tempo run was awesome. I think the fact that we were racing the darkness helped us keep the pace rolling. We started out with a 5:50 ish first mile and we were both concerned that we may have started a little fast. Fortunately, we were able to find a groove and just kept the pace rolling. I honestly thought that we'd have to run the last 3 miles in the dark, but we were actually able to get through about 5 of the miles before darkness set in. The remaining 2 miles were a real challenge. We had our headlamps on to light our way and then it was just up to pure determination. For those of you that haven't given it much thought or have much experience with running in the daylight vs darkness, it's much more difficult to run fast without daylight.

We were quite please with our tempo run effort but I was definitely unsure just how quickly we would bounce back for a race only a couple days later. On top of that, it was going to be a Friday race (usually our rest day) which means it would come after a long work week, and on top of that, it was scheduled for 7:00. Bring on the darkness! The weather on Friday was awesome. I was able to wear shorts, a tank, and arm warmers.  Kimi and I were both venturing out with our own race goal in mind. My goal was to break 17 minutes and Kimi's was to simply run as fast as she could.  The race was basically an out an back style course which means that at the half way point, you make a 180 degree about-face and head back the way you came. When I reached the turn around, I was quite surprised to see how many fast runners were still fairly close behind me. At two miles in, I made a quick glance over my shoulder to see what was happening right behind me. Unfortunately, I couldn't see that Kimi was almost right behind me. She must have been hidden behind another runner. That's when I decided that I thought I could still get 2nd place overall. I quickly turned up the pace. With a half mile to go, I had caught the 2nd place guy and pulled even with him. He was a younger runner than me and with that in mind, I figured I had better get a gap between us prior to the final straight away sprint or he'd probably be able to out kick  me. I really poured it on at this point and pulled away far enough that I felt like I had a comfortable lead. I never really let up the pace all the way to the finish and was able to run one of my fastest times for a road course ever. I've only run faster a couple other times actually. I crossed in 16:38.  It wasn't long and Kimi came strolling across the line. She crossed in 17:12 which is an awesome time for her as well.

We were both a bit shocked with how it turned out.  Our next race won't be until January. We intend to run the Cabin Fever Reliever 20k on January 16. We have a scheduled 10 mile tempo plus 1 all out mile scheduled for that day so we thought that this race would actually work out perfectly for us to do the workout during.

Got our Christmas Lights Up!