Jingle All the Way 10K

This past weekend about half of our Team Challenge group met to run in the Jingle All the Way 10K. I was very excited as this was another opportunity to run a race with Chris as a lot of my training I have been doing without him. We were worried that we would not get a personal record as there were over 4,000 runners and it was very crowded at the beginning. The race was very entertaining as many people were dressed in Santa suits, etc and a majority of people had bells on their shoes.

We got off to a slow start and got to the half way point around 30 minutes. From there the crowds started to thin a little and we were able to pick up the pace. Chris estimates that we ran our last mile in about 7 minutes, which I think I rarely did when I was running three season of track in high school! We were both very tired at the end but pushed each other and finished with a new PR of 54:28 for the 6.3 miles, which is an 8:46 minute mile pace. I can not believe how far I have come from my 10Ks last year and am very optimistic about the half marathon. I was even able to go out and run 6 miles yesterday which I would have never seen myself doing the day after a race. I am hoping to just stay healthy so I can reach my 1/2 marathon goal of finishing the race under 2 hours and 10 minutes. I guess now that I have said my goal out loud I need to stick to it and keep working hard!

I also have some other news, I reached my $3,600 Fundraising goal last week! This has been such an amazing journey! I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to get so many friends and family involved with the foundation and I hope that you all have learned a little more about what I am going through. I in turn have learned so much from my fellow teammates that for once I don't feel cursed to have this disease.