Over the past few years, Bo and I have enjoyed kicking off the holiday season with a holiday themed race. For the past few years our race of choice was the New York Road Runners Jingle Bell Jog which brought thousands of runners to Prospect Park for a jingle bell filled 3-5 mile race depending on the year. In fact, last year’s race was a huge PR for me, the first time I ran sub 9 minute miles for a NYRR 4 mile race.
This year I wanted to keep the tradition alive and therefore started looking for local holiday races in London. Luckily back in October Leah and I discovered the CAFOD Nativity Run which features a 5k and 10k course. The name of this race is one of the big differences we’ve noticed about the holiday season in London and Geneva. People still greet people with Merry Christmas versus happy holidays and there are religious references in many different events such as this run.
The race, which takes place in Clapham Common, encourages runners to kick off the season by running the race in Nativity themed costume or other holiday costume and stick around after the race for mulled wine, hot cocoa and mince pie. Since it is a more casual race, the start time of 10:30 was also a welcome change especially since so many weekends kick off with holiday parties on Friday night. The entry price of 5 pounds (5k) or 10 pounds (10k) included chip timing, race number and post race festivities. Almost every runner was in full costume ranging from nativity characters to spandex Santa costumes.
Leah who has organized Team Naturally Run, a group of London bloggers who attend events together and organize things through a very active Facebook group, suggested we make a celebration out of the race. Not only did she organize the group but she also ordered engraved race medals for each of us and elf costumes! The elf costumes, which were made of felt, were actually quite warm and comfortable thanks to a cinch waist feature. The felt was a bit too warm while I was running but while we were waiting and socializing afterwards I was thankful for the extra warmth since I was only wearing shorts and compression socks underneath. 
So let’s talk about the race itself. When Bo, Emily and I registered originally the plan was to race the 10k and hopefully go home with a shiny new PR or PB, personal record or personal best as the gals in UK call it. Well unfortunately the three weeks I’ve been fighting an ongoing cough and cold, which has limited my workouts. This week I decided it best to drop to the 5k considering the distances I’ve run recently and I’m still not feeling 100%. The organizers were super understanding and even refunded us the price difference, though we never requested nor expected this!
Using Athlinks I found that my 5k PR was from 3 years ago and was a 9:35. With this new goal in mind I asked Emily if she wanted to help pace me to a sub 9 since I feel like I can do anything for 3 miles even when sick. My fellow Team Naturally Run girls laughed when they heard this yesterday as they each warned that this wasn’t a very race friendly course. The course, which at times felt like it was shaped like a snowflake, felt like something a little kid drew on paper. 
It went through woods, huge mud puddles, piles of leaves, up hills, and across the common, rarely running on the paved path. We can only imagine that the course was as twisty as it was in order to make the distance but it was still a humorous experiences. During the run I couldn’t help but laugh out loud to Emily that I couldn’t believe we were doing this. Every time we encountered mud I had a vision of me becoming a mud covered elf if I slipped. Our shoes were covered in dirt by the end!
Regardless of the terrain for each of the 5 kilometers we pushed on as fast as my lungs and legs could considering the elements. Luckily the one thing in our favor was the weather as it was a gorgeous, clear day around 40 degrees and sunny! We had no idea what are pace was as we ran Garmin free. When we crossed the finished we high fived each other, proud that we’d still given it our best effort but were definitely thankful we didn’t have to run another loop for the 10k. We later found out that our effort resulted in a shiny new PR of 28:38 or a 9:13 pace. While this isn’t the sub 9 that I was hoping for it is still a huge improvement from my previous 5k time and has me excited for half marathon training this Spring when I can focus a bit more on strength and speed! 
These London bloggers know how to organize events, that’s for sure!The fifteen of us had a blast yesterday catching up, celebrating the holidays and Leah’s recent engagement! These ladies even brought champagne to toast with afterwards! 
I’m also thrilled that Bo, who also ran the 5k, was able to meet each of them!
Have you ever run in full costume? What was it?
