Chilly Chili 5K

The Chilly Chili 5K was a New Years Day race.  Now, I am NOT a huge New Years Eve person.  I think I may have had 3 really fun new years eve's since I left high school and none of them have involved much partying.  Those that did involve partying usually turned out very badly.  

The thing with New Years Eve is that my bday is on New Years Day. Talk about pressure to have a good time.  NYE is already an over-played-up holiday and usually disapoints most of the people I talk to.  Add having your birthday the next day, and it can be depressing if you aren't having the "time of your life" that everyone expects.  I guess it just took me this long to realize my "time of my life" isn't a raging party!  NYE Eric and I went to my moms with friends.  We watched the UCONN men, we watched a little Pawn Stars, and Ryan Seacrest.  We discussed the important things in life and decided whether Nicki Minaj was wearing a wig, a hat or had bad hair (we decided on all 3).  We watched the ball drop, went home.  This is my kind of NYE.  Does that make me feel old?  YES and again, add on to it that by the time we got home, I was, actually, a year older!!!

However, that being said.  I have now decided the BEST way to celebrate New Years AND your birthday is a PR!!!!  This was a fun 5K as well as an inspiring one.  3 nonagenarians raced this year.  It is the first time in U.S history that 3 90 year olds have competed in a road race.  It was very exciting the race director did an excellent job making a big deal out of this.  My 2 favorite parts were when the Under-12 year olds presented these 3 men with their trophies and gifts.  Super cool to see the way running transcends generations.  The other favorite part was the family in front of us: 3 generations of runners, grandma got a trophy, granddaughter got a trophy and mom might have gotten a trophy (we had to leave), but she definitely ran too.  Actually two of the granddaughters ran.  One had just turned 13, the other was younger.    I thought this was just awesome!  

My race was a good one too.  I wanted to get in 8 miles for the day, so i woke up, ran 5.5 and then got ready for the race.  I set a new PR of 23:09 (previous time 23:22).  Garmin says my 5K time was 22:59!  So I plan on breaking 23 soon.  It was a hot race for this time of the year.  It was very sunny and was approaching 50 degrees.  I definitely was not dressed appropriately, but clearly, I survived.   I came in 4th in my age group, and was disappointed in myself that I let purple shirt girl beat me.  However, this was definitely a great race for me, I just thought a bday trophy would have been pretty sweet!

My personal message to the crowd. Please, ignore the leftover swimmerback.

The girl in front of me just finished puking.  It was HOT for January 1st!

Pre-race.  No matter what the distance, I always look super nervous!

These 3 nonagenarians are first instance of this many 90-year-olds competing in a road race in the U.S. They were INSPIRING!!!

The Starting Line.  See the girl in the purple shirt, she beat me out to take 3rd place.  She's haunting me!!!