Jolly Elf Trail Run: Recap

• I finished 57th out of 599 participants
• 8th out of total females
• AND FIRST IN MY CATEGORY!!!! 

Here I am near the finish line.

 It was such an amazing feeling looking at the website the next day and seeing my name FIRST!

This was a smaller race so only the male and female winners got medals. But, heck, I don't care! 

Winning my category was MY medal!

RACE RECAP

 It was a trail run. I didn't even realize I had signed up for a trail run until I went to pick up my race pack on Friday. I was mildly curious about it. But since it was only a 5K I was not too concerned.

I woke up on Saturday excited and ready to see what the course looked like. The only bad news is that it was so cold. 

I feel like it was colder than the half-marathon. That makes sense because we are now in the second half of December.

We got there an hour early to find parking and pick up my chip. It was old-school this time.

Here I am picking up my chip.

The typical shoe chip that you have to give back.

No high-tech technology like the half-marathon. But hey, it was a 5K and it only cost me $20! I wasn't complaining!

Before my race there was 1 mile "fun run" for little kids and their families.

It was cute. There were tons of little munchkins, and a few tears, but everyone finished the race.

My race started a half hour later at 9am. There were about 599 participants in the timed 5K.

I placed myself at the front this time. I had no plans to run a PR or anything. It was all in good fun. The trail was not as scary as I expected. I had to run through quite a bit of mud and leaves but it was OK.

I had fun and even got a yummy candy cane at the end!

I gave it to my niece because I don't eat candy canes.

The food after the event was good too. They had bananas, oranges, whole wheat bread and tons of yummy types of bagels. It was great. After the half-marathon I could only eat a banana because the other options were pizza and beer!

All in all it was great. (I said that already didn't I?)

I saw tons of elves like promised.

Ok, clearly not elves but festive!

 DJs and cheerleaders. If you look to the left you can see some pre-teens with pom poms.

 An old man with no shirt on in 30 degree Fahrenheit weather.

 Beautiful views

 And most importantly: camaraderie

The woman in blue was super fast! The tall elf to the right finished second.

I'm definitely a fan of community races.

This was my last race before my marathon next year. I definitely ended the year on a high note!