Mistletoe Half Marathon

Me, Carrie and Meredith outside race central

Yesterday morning 12/6 at 5:25am, I met my training friend Carrie (she ran Boston earlier this year and is now training for a marathon in FL in March) and her friend Meredith who will run the same marathon as Carrie in March- met at a local grocery store parking lot to carpool the 90 miles down the mountain to Winston-Salem, NC to the 25th running of the Mistletoe ½ Marathon. It was 17 degrees at my house at 5:15am and arriving in Winston, somewhere around 28 or 29 with very little wind.

What fun! I usually always travel and run alone! And I did run alone this morning, traveling with these 2 was very fun! I thought is was neat we live in Ashe County, NC and span 3 decades: Meredith in her 20’s, Carrie, in her 30’s and me at 42! We chatted and listened to music on the way down. We rode in Carrie’s new black Ford Focus and I felt a bit like a participate one a TV show I watched in high school: riding in Kit-the car from Nightrider while being exposed to all sorts of new electronics and ways of communicating with the car!

This year’s Mistletoe had 853 registered runners and 768 finishers. Some people dressed like elves and deer or just wore tails. The course was rolling hills and looped around some of the old parts of Wake Forest University.

Though I am not a regular in the Winston-Salem running scene, I saw many familiar faces at this event which is always a cause for shared smiles and waves. I ran this event in 2004 and finished in a little over 1:31. I hoped to beat that time this year. I didn’t. My hamstrings never really loosened up and I have learned not to push in situations like that. Perhaps if it was a longer event, they would have…Anyway, running was great fun-there were a couple of “out n backs” and I could see my “car mates” and share a wave! I pretty much started out as 10th woman and maintained that spot until the end. I finished 45th overall with a time of 1:32:24. Carrie and Meredith were both pleased with their times of 1:45:01 and 2:10:23 respectively. Complete results here.

I was happy to share a morning of travel and running with 2 neat women-and we got back to Ashe County by 12:30pm!

I took a nap with kitty before resuming Saturday afternoon activities!