NickW
Guest
Yesterday was the Jingle Bell Run in downtown Portland, OR. I unfortunately do not have enough time to write a full race report as I have three final projects plus finals this week and next. We had a great showing of the Oregon chapter BRS there and our BRS team did pretty well overall I think. There were 7 of us that I know for sure were part of the BRS. We had Mike (migangelo), Daniel (paraganek), Josh (Joshh), Jen (jdeleon), Suzanne(sorry if I spelled your name wrong), Janson (yes thats his real name), and me.
We arrived almost an hour early and Mike and I went for a warmup run of somewhere between a mile and a half and almost two miles. With all the buildings surrounding us my garmin kept stopping as it would lose signal so I'm not sure exactly how far we ran. It was about 33 deg F when I left my house but when we got downtown Mike and I saw a sign that said it was 39. It felt much colder than that to me so I think that sign was off, judging by the way Janson was shivering and shaking makes me think I'm correct.
When the race started Joshh was off and we didn't see him again till the end of the race. I think he finished in 19:07. I had kind of wanted to see how long I could keep up with him but with the crowd I lost sight of him right at the start. Man is he fast, and he hasn't run for three weeks prior to this race....
I tried keeping up with Mike, Daniel, Janson and Suzanne at the start but couldn't seem to get my legs under me at first. It wasn't long until my legs worked out their kinks and I got on the road lines and sped up. At close to a mile I passed those 4 and felt really good and strong. At the turn around point I expected to see them right close to me but I didn't see them anywhere, although I was really focusing on the painted lines.
Daniel flew by me in the roughest stretch of the road about 2 1/2 miles in. He had an injury so he had hung back I guess early on in the race until it worked out. From there he really kicked it into high gear and was flying. Not far from the finish Mike ran past me, startling me with the child size hand print he left on my rear. ;-) Paybacks Mike!
I tried to pick up the pace but just didn't have much left in the tank so I wasn't able to pick it up enough to catch him. I did finish the last eighth of a mile at a dead out sprint with a time of 28:23. Janson finished just seconds behind me. Despite being slightly slower than my last 5k I felt much better this go around, and that was with running before hand which I did not do last time.
After the race we heard people singing Christmas music, turned out it was Josh singing Christmas karaoke. We went to a local brewery and had a drink and some laughs and got to know each other. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to hangout with and run with. Everyone is so supportive of each other. We all ended up getting free drinks and happy hour meals for free. The manager was embarressed that we had to wait so long for service. I think he wasn't aware of the race and didn't have enough staff scheduled. I don't think any of us complained about the service and none of us were expecting anysort of a discount or anything.
I did notice that this race everyone thought it was so cool that we were running barefoot. I heard comments like you guys are so hardcore and other words of encouragement. I met one guy who was pushing a stroller and he came up and talked to me and was telling me he was thinking about switching to barefoot and minimalist. This guy was amazingly fast despite having a stroller he was pushing. I only hope I can get that fast one day. This was a much better experience than my last race and makes me wonder if my last race was just a fluke or something. Thanks again to all my new friends from the Oregon chapter for making this such a great experience!
We arrived almost an hour early and Mike and I went for a warmup run of somewhere between a mile and a half and almost two miles. With all the buildings surrounding us my garmin kept stopping as it would lose signal so I'm not sure exactly how far we ran. It was about 33 deg F when I left my house but when we got downtown Mike and I saw a sign that said it was 39. It felt much colder than that to me so I think that sign was off, judging by the way Janson was shivering and shaking makes me think I'm correct.
When the race started Joshh was off and we didn't see him again till the end of the race. I think he finished in 19:07. I had kind of wanted to see how long I could keep up with him but with the crowd I lost sight of him right at the start. Man is he fast, and he hasn't run for three weeks prior to this race....
I tried keeping up with Mike, Daniel, Janson and Suzanne at the start but couldn't seem to get my legs under me at first. It wasn't long until my legs worked out their kinks and I got on the road lines and sped up. At close to a mile I passed those 4 and felt really good and strong. At the turn around point I expected to see them right close to me but I didn't see them anywhere, although I was really focusing on the painted lines.
Daniel flew by me in the roughest stretch of the road about 2 1/2 miles in. He had an injury so he had hung back I guess early on in the race until it worked out. From there he really kicked it into high gear and was flying. Not far from the finish Mike ran past me, startling me with the child size hand print he left on my rear. ;-) Paybacks Mike!
I tried to pick up the pace but just didn't have much left in the tank so I wasn't able to pick it up enough to catch him. I did finish the last eighth of a mile at a dead out sprint with a time of 28:23. Janson finished just seconds behind me. Despite being slightly slower than my last 5k I felt much better this go around, and that was with running before hand which I did not do last time.
After the race we heard people singing Christmas music, turned out it was Josh singing Christmas karaoke. We went to a local brewery and had a drink and some laughs and got to know each other. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to hangout with and run with. Everyone is so supportive of each other. We all ended up getting free drinks and happy hour meals for free. The manager was embarressed that we had to wait so long for service. I think he wasn't aware of the race and didn't have enough staff scheduled. I don't think any of us complained about the service and none of us were expecting anysort of a discount or anything.
I did notice that this race everyone thought it was so cool that we were running barefoot. I heard comments like you guys are so hardcore and other words of encouragement. I met one guy who was pushing a stroller and he came up and talked to me and was telling me he was thinking about switching to barefoot and minimalist. This guy was amazingly fast despite having a stroller he was pushing. I only hope I can get that fast one day. This was a much better experience than my last race and makes me wonder if my last race was just a fluke or something. Thanks again to all my new friends from the Oregon chapter for making this such a great experience!
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