Two Holiday Races

This post is about two races that I did back to back in 2 days. I have never done 2 in a row before and it was extra fun because it was a girl's weekend. My sorority sister Bonnie told me about the Surfn' Santa 10 Miler, so we decided to do it together. I think it would have been much more fun if the weather had been warmer and I had remembered to stretch my hip flexor...after having so much trouble with my hip I have no idea how I could forget to stretch it. I guess I was concentrating on other things. All in all though it was a good race. It's always nice to run in Virginia Beach because its flat and its always nice to have girl time.
We got a wind breaker jacket for this race which turned out to be a really nice pull over type of thing that will be good for the windy beach nights and chilly mountain evenings.

Santa with his surf board.

When we ran this race last December it was the first year for it. J&A Racing had to change the race course the week before the race, so we ended up running mostly on the boardwalk, and then we had to loop back down towards the finish, turn around near the finish and run back out another 3 miles and back to actually finish. They should have had us either zig-zag between the buildings or go up another mile and a half and then come back down. Having to go in and back towards the finish was a little sad. But I was SO GLAD to get through those doors, back into the heat and get a hold of a banana! We were so ready for a shower that we completely skipped out on our free beer from Samuel Adams. I felt rather sick too. I took my coat off and sat on the floor and hugged my knees while I ate my banana. Sitting never felt so good.


I think what made this race hard on me was that I had slacked off since the half. I know that rest time is invaluable, but I guess I took too much. The weather conditions had a lot to do with it too I believe. I'm miserable in the cold anyways, but running into a cold head wind that's going 29mph is no fun at all. And there is nothing more windy than the beach in December.

No one was there to take pictures for us so we had to do it ourselves. It was somewhat successful as you can see.

King Neptune was cool to run past and it was a beautiful day even though it was so cold.

After our wonderfully hot showers, we went up to Newport News and stopped at Cracker Barrel (quickley becoming an after race tradition for us) and then headed to hang out with another sister for a bit before heading on to Williamsburg for our next race.
Williamsburg was our next stop after that. I love that place. Its a great place to go when you just want to get out of town for the day or even a night. I just really like hanging out there. We went to packet pick up for the Christmas Town Dash 8K that was Sunday morning, and then hit the outlets. Dinner at Carrabba's was fabulous and then we went to bed. We were up late on Friday night because we kept talking and we couldn't sleep, but sleeping wasn't an issue Saturday night. It also snowed a little which was magical in its own way since we were running Christmas themed races. Christmas just isn't the same without snow.

Sunday morning we got up early and left for Busch Gardens (where the race was held) at 7:15AM. We left so early (even though our hotel was about 3 minutes away from the entrance) because the people at packet pick up scared us into it. They said that if anyone wasn't in the gates by 8AM they were closing them and locking people out. So we made sure we were in there. Once we got parked we started to head down to where the race started and people were walking back to their cars. Turns out that the race had been delayed 30 minutes because of traffic. There was an accident on 64 westbound (you think Richmond drivers are bad, you should see folks south of Williamsburg...) and it was blocking 2 lanes of traffic and delaying people from getting there. So the race finally started at 9AM and we were glad to go!! In the parking lots there are no trees around so the wind was hitting us harder than the day before. It was cold at the beach, but it was just plain BITTER in Williamsburg. ICK!! We ran the entire thing but our times weren't the best because the race was so packed and since they didn't start people in corrals, it was really bottle necked in some places. You could pick the first time runners out of the crowd because they just walked down the middle of the course instead of moving to the side. Anyways, it was better once we got into the park. Lots of trees to keep the wind from blasting, and Busch just makes me happy anyways. I love that place. I really enjoyed running through it. I can't wait till the rides open again in the spring.

We were glad we did the 2 races because they were both inaugural races. It also made for a fun weekend, even though it was so cold.