Sunday I ran my last 5k race of the year. My third and final race this time was the biggest. After getting myself confused with a different Jingle Bell run that my trainer was doing (sadly she was talking about the one in Tacoma not Seattle). I ran the 2012 Seattle Jingle Bell Run
Meant to support arthritis this was a 5k run straight through downtown Seattle.

Meant to be on the 2nd Sunday in December I was looking forward to one last run and not taking it so seriously, getting some Christmas spirit as well. What I didn’t expect was just how many people. I had managed to con my manager Anna into joining me for the run and she conned her partner in.

It was a pretty awesome route though going up (and i mean uphill) 5th Ave through the middle of downtown then an awesome experience of going down through the tunnel into the I5 express lanes, where we would spend a good period of the run. But this was also what made it difficult at the same time.

The run was a mess, so many people. I was seeing race numbers in the 15000s! That is seriously another level above anything I have ever run before. The run at PFAD was maybe 100 people, the run at Halloween was maybe 400 or more, but this was crazy!

Due to the volumes of people we worked out we were a solid 2 mins behind our time and spent dodging other people and breaking out of the pack. The tunnel added more problems because you just couldn’t go anywhere at all, you were stuck in the middle of it all. I swear I stood on someone a few times.

Post race was pretty good, took a mere minute to get my bag from the coat check and 20 mins after finishing, waving bye to the boss and some rehydration I was in the truck heading home.

I will link in the run map but it’s not entirely accurate due to the tunnel but the time is spot on!