Today was my final race of 2015, the Reindeer Run 5K. It also marks a goal I set out to achieve at the beginning of 2015. I decided that I wanted to run a race every single month of the year, and I’m happy to report that I met that goal. I’ll talk more about all the races I did in my final running wrap up of 2015.

The Reindeer Run is a simple, non-chip timed 5K around Lake Harriet. One of the reasons I wanted to do this race is because the running shirt that you get looks a bit like an ugly Christmas sweater. I kinda liked the one they did last year better, but it this year’s still looks cool.

I’ve only run twice in the past two weeks, so I wasn’t sure what my performance would be today. I figured I could just start up running and see how I felt. Of course this race was chock full of slow runners and walkers lining up at the front, so for the first mile I was sprinting and dodging people like crazy.

Once I had a solid ~9 minute mile under my belt I decided to just keep going at that pace. The second mile ticked off as expected, just a bit slower because of a couple of hills. I was starting to feel the literal weight of the bad eating habits I’ve formed since it started to get cold out on the third mile. I managed to hold it together and finished with an overall time of 28:10.

I’m happy with my performance, as I haven’t done much in the way of speedwork in a while. However, I feel like I was dragging with a few extra pounds on me. I’m looking forward to getting through the holidays and just trying to hold steady so I can attack losing weight again in January.

The Reindeer Run was a fun time, and a good race to finish out the year. It’s been quite an adventure!