Jingle Bell Hell Virtual Race

I'm not sure how many of you follow Taking It On with XLMIC, but she is hosting a virtual race this weekend (and a real one too).  Here is her post about it.  While I certainly didn't do anything resembling a 1/3 marathon, 5K was hellish enough given my current state of head and chest congestion (running with a Halls cough drop for extra fun).  That said, the weather was in the 40's and the sun was shining so that took the edge of the hell.  I also decided to go with the small 0.5 mile loops nearly all within eyeshot of my house as a nod to Marge's crazy training.   My husband took my camera hunting this weekend so my daughter used my Flip to take footage of the last mile and some change.  I tried to take the multiple clips and make them into a movie.  Haven't tried uploading video before so you get what you get.  If nothing else, the still below were all screen captures of the videos taken.

 

The rules for the virtual race:

• Must be at least 5K in total length...no maximum.  (CHECK! The loop down my cul-de-sac hill, back up, to the end of the sidewalk one direction and back, to the end of my property and back is a 0.5 mile loop - done 6x + two extra hill repeats to make sure I crossed the 0.1 mile mark. - Note the 2' contours - Sorry I have white space I couldn't get rid of in Paint)
• Must be done on a challenging course (and if you hate treadmills, that means it could be on a treadmill) because the idea is "Hell" ... that is the important part. (CHECK!  That is EIGHT times up and down the hill I live on plus a lesser side hill plus the fact that I HATE looped courses where you see the finish line and it teases you.  Six times?  Insane!)
• Must be done the weekend of Dec. 17-18, 2011... any time of day or night.  (Dec 17, 1 PM - CHECK!)
• You must laugh at least once... can be an evil laugh, a laugh of futility, any kind of laugh but laughter is a MUST.  (CHECK!  Laughed every time I high 5'd my daughter's friend.)



High 10 at the end - love how her feet are off the ground here!

• Email me a link to your Jingle Bell Hell recap so I can post it that next week and we may all share in the fun... please include something about when, where, why regarding the laughing part :) (Will do as soon as I finish this!)

 

For extra "hell" factor, I had the dumb idea of doing this right after I ate my lunch (spaghetti).  Did not particularly enjoy burping that up and mixing the flavor with the cherry cough drop.  I did have a little bit of a water station on my front porch (about 100' to the right of this last picture).  I stopped after the first mile to slug a little bit of water and tie my shoe, the second mile to tell my daughter to find the camera and get a sip and then drank at the end.  Even though it is cool, we still need to hydrate! 

Side note for HBBC point tracking, breakfast was a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  Had a few chips for a snack mid-morning (oops).  Need to figure out how to get some veggies in for dinner.