On Saturday I participated in the Renegade Racing’s Troutman Sanders Renegade Santa Run with Angry Kid. I ran the 5K and he ran the Kid’s 1K Run.

I hadn’t done a “race” since Disney’s Wine & Dine Half Marathon (which I still need to write about), and Angry Kid hadn’t done a Kid’s Race since the Aquarium of the Pacific Kid’s Fun Run.

I was worried that Angry Kid would be sick for the kid’s run since he had a bad cough the day before, but he got up early in the morning with me to make it to the race.

Being that it was a “Santa Themed Race”, I had to get all dressed up for the festive occasion. I got some Christmas accessories prior to the event at Claire’s. It is extremely hard to find any Christmas-themed knee socks in December. I was lucky to stumble along a Claire’s while in Palm Springs the weekend prior. I paired my striped knee socks with a green Team Sparkle Skirt and my slime green Saucony Kinvara 3’s. My slime green shoes have been declared my “race shoes” because they were special edition and sold out super fast.

Now that my hair has gotten longer, I can do more things with it. I twisted the sides of it, and put my hair in a low ponytail in the back. I cannot stand my hair flopping around when I’m running. After my hair was all content, I added my awesome sparkly elf hat!

While heading for the start of the race, and finding my place in the race corrals, I ran into Heather. We got a pre-race photo together. Heather ran the 10K that day.

Heather and I had fun while waiting for the race to start with looking at the umm entertaining “costumes” that people were wearing for the race. We were unsure about what some of the costumes were supposed to be.

And then the race was on…

The race was basically a loop on a neighborhood bike trail/path. It had rained the night before so part of the trail was made up of dirt and gravel was somewhat slippery. I haven’t felt quite right since I had the flu a few weeks ago and I could totally feel it during the run. Also, I’ve decided that I’m more of a night runner now. I have more energy at the end of the day. I finished in a decent time, but I wasn’t really impressed with myself, 33:02. BLAH!

The best part was the last .1 of the race. I saw my son waiting at the finish line for me, cheering me on. He was standing near my mom and Jenn’s husband. Jenn’s husband was able to capture me running past on video. I was carrying my iPhone so I did a hand off to my son while running.

Jenn and I also got a post-race photo together.

Before I met up with Jenn, she had been looking for me. Her husband took a cute photo of their son and mine. Key factor: The boys have the same name.

We hung around and watched the 5K Finisher’s Awards and participated in the costume contest before the kid’s race. Angry Kid almost won one of the kid’s costume categories, but a cute little reindeer (girl) won instead. And the adult’s division was super difficult to win, so many awesome costumes.

After watching the 5K awards and both of us doing the costume contest, Angry Kid almost missed the kid’s race. We both ran to the starting line. He was able to start with the group, and he finished pretty fast also. I was so proud of him because he has had some “issues” running races this year. But he finished strong this time.

He was very proud of earning the medal for running the race!

Oh, and here was my entire costume for the run, post-race. My son took the photo. This was the best of five photos.

It was my first time doing the Santa Run. I knew that parking would be an issue but we got there around 7am, an hour before the race, and we were fine. Because of the rain, it was a bit slippery, but I just made sure to watch my footing. It got crowded at some of the narrower spots, but it eventually opened up. Angry Kid had a blast doing the kid’s run too!