Mom in the Mtns

Hi everyone!  I am super excited about this post – not only is it time to recap my 13th race in 2014, it’s MY race!  I had so much fun creating and running my own virtual race and I can’t wait to do it again next year!  I loved getting to celebrate the winter solstice in such an awesome way.  The solstice is a big deal in Alaska because you can definitely tell a difference in sunlight up here.  On Sunday we only had 5 hours and 28 minutes of sunlight which is pretty nuts.  Now that the solstice has passed, it’s finally going to start getting lighter every day and I am so excited!

On Sunday morning, I set my alarm for 8:00 (if I don’t set an alarm I just wake up when the sun rises which is around 10:30 now) and started checking twitter.  There were so many people who lived on the east coast who had already finished the race!  All of the exciting updates got me really excited to start running!  I didn’t end up running the race until 2:00 though because I had a bad headache and I was just hoping that lots of hydrating and food would help.  And it didn’t.  I could tell before I even left the house that I was going to have a slow race because I wasn’t feeling well, but since this race is awesome and doesn’t have results posted online like an official race I felt a little bit better about it.  And once we got outside I learned that it had been snowing (we only got like 1/8 of an inch) and it was still happening!  I was so pumped that it was the first day of winter and I got to spend it running outside in the falling snow!

If you’re wondering where my awesome race bib was, I realized late on Saturday night that we don’t have our printer hooked up and don’t have paper anyways.  Fail.  I’ll be printing it out as soon as possible though to hang it on my bib wall!  Andrew wasn’t feeling a run today, so he took a walk while I ran.  I did my usual route along the Westchester Lagoon and on the coastal trail.  Even though it was snowing, the sun made a little appearance too!

Pretty much as high as it gets now

Running while it’s snowing is basically my favorite thing ever, and I was having so much fun!  But eventually my headache got the best of me and I had to slow down to try to feel better.  Lots of selfie stops happened.

Even though I’d had an incredible run on Friday, Sunday was just not my day.  But I did the best I could and tried to focus on my surroundings.  The lagoon was packed with ice skaters for a solstice skating party, and there was a sound system up playing Christmas music!  And I even ran into Andrew on my way back!

Despite everything trying to slow me down, I had so much fun running in my own race.  This is something I never thought I’d do and I’m so happy that I have so many awesome blogger running friends out there who want to run with me!  Speaking of which, it’s time to shout out my finishers!  Although 27 people were signed up, only 14 people came back to post their results and become entered into my giveaway!  I’m not sure if everyone saw that I’d be picking a winner Sunday night, so I’m giving everyone one more day to submit their times here!  I will be using a random number generator to choose a winner on Monday night at 10:00 PM AST.  I will post the winner in Tuesday’s post!  Sorry for the delay, but I want to make sure that everyone who participated gets a chance to win!  Even though only one person can win the headlamp, I feel like there were so many people that deserve shoutouts today:

-Brie from Lean Clean and Brie got a 5K PR!  Wooohooo!

-Stacey from Running Muffin ran her first virtual race – and looked awesome celebrating!  And it was her first race back after an injury which is awesome!

–Shawna ran so early in the morning that there were still Christmas lights lit up!  It sounds like a beautiful run!

-Amy from Let’s Go Running also completed her first virtual race!  So excited to finally be running “with” her after all of our scavenger hunt posts!

-Katie from From The Pool to 26.2 ran this race on the treadmill!  That’s pretty hardcore – I’ve never raced on a treadmill before!

-Annemarie from The Fit Foodie Mama for running while sick!  Been there and it’s rough so I’m proud you made it out!

-And big shoutout to Rebecca from Strength and Sunshine for running her very first 5K ever!!!!!  And then some!  I am so excited she’s getting into running and chose my race to be her first!  Here’s to many more!

There were so many people who had never run a virtual race before!  Other than the ones already listed above, this was the first virtual race for Brie, Katie, and Kyle!  There were a few more people signed up who had never run a virtual race before, but no word if they completed it yet or not.  Congrats on your first virtual race guys!

I really loved running with everyone and I think we should all do this more often!  Who knows, maybe I’ll do a summer one too  🙂  Happy winter solstice everyone!  Get excited for more sunlight and snow!

Have you ever run a virtual race before?  How did you spend your winter solstice?