Last official race of 2015 today and it was one of my favorites. Today I ran in the “Run, Santa, Run” 5k in Mentor, Ohio. This is the second year I have participated in this race and boy did it grow from last year. There were an estimated 1000 participants!

Last year, it was pretty chilly out during the race. There wasn’t any snow on the road and I don’t quite remember if there was snow on the grass or anything but I do remember that I had to wear a long sleeved shirt and pants as well as gloves and a hat while I ran. My time previously was 28:42 which was my fastest time of 2014. I was pretty pumped to finish my running season on that note.

Fast forward to this year and I finished in 27:18…and it was 65 degrees outside. I had a t-shirt and shorts on. It was actually pretty balmy. The sun wasn’t out but this weather was perfect for my last race of the year (but not my last race of the season as I have my half marathon in Los Angeles coming up next month).

One of the goals I set forth for myself was to beat Lori. She is currently 5 months pregnant and was doing a lot of assuring me I would be passing her eventually since she hadn’t run more than 2 miles in quite some time. We started off together for about 2 seconds and then she took off. I had her in my sights for the first two miles and then I randomly lost her. She finished about a minute ahead of me. Not terrible, but still. I will say I am proud that she is still running at this point.

What I love about this race is that it is Christmas themed. I love Christmas and although I don’t dress up like other people do (like Santa or elves or Christmas trees), I like the shirt design of a Santa running and you get a Christmas hat and a glass with the logo. The glass is so you can partake in Christmas ale post race but I am not really a fan of that beverage. I’m sure next year we can’t bank on having great weather like this but I’ll take it where I can. It is much easier to convince myself to go for a run when it is in the sixties as opposed to being in the twenties.

The other fun part of today was after the race. Kait and I headed downtown to see the Browns take on the San Francisco 49ers. We won! It was a great day all around!