P’nut Butter Chip Chase 5k Recap

What? P’nut Butter Chip Chase 5k

When? January 1, 2015 at 12:00 p.m.

Where? Temple, NH

What better way to start the new year and rid the New Year’s Eve celebration toxins from your body than with a 5k?! This was the 37th running of this race. I hadn’t ran this race since high school. The last time I ran it was an awful snowy day and it seemed like only 20 people ran it. This year I was surprised to see that 214 people crossed the finish line! The weather was much better than any year prior. The sky was clear, the ground was bear and no one had to worry about slipping and sliding.

I decided to run the race about 10:15 a.m. after inhaling some coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Everything settled and I figured I was going to run that day anyway so I may as well do it with some other people. Luckily, Temple is just a short drive so there was no rush to get out the door.

It was a pretty windy day. I had no idea what to wear. I ended up just going with a Nike quarter zip and tights. I had my favorite Pro Compression short socks, Brooks Ravenna 5’s, Bose Soundsport headphones, and my lovely Halo Headband.

Everyone crowded in the town hall at the beginning of there ace to register and keep warm. I have never seen it so crowded in there. It just shows how popular the race has gotten.

The race started right on time with everyone lining up shortly before. The first part of the race went up a little hill. About half of a mile into the race I decided that running a 5k today was probably one of the worst ideas ever and I strongly considered turning around. No one would thing anything of it.. right? I decided well, you’re already here, you already paid $20, you can at least finish it in some fashion. So I ran on. Questioning life. The first two miles were a series of rolling hills. Nothing too strenuous. They went down beautiful back roads through Temple where traffic wasn’t an issue. The third mile was almost entirely up down hill and on a dirt road. At this point I was like yesssss we got this. The, the last .3ish miles were stomach turning. There was one last hill before the finish going right into the center of town. My stomach literally turned. I just wanted to close my eyes and take a nap right there in the road. I repeated to myself to hold it together and got to the end. And then was fine. That’s how it always is.

I was even smiling. Then of course I realized I hadn’t ran hard at all so that wasn’t much of a “race” for me. Nonetheless, still fun. Local races obviously lead to a lot of chatting, and after a while we all headed back into the town hall for some delicious homemade soups and chocolate chip cookies (obviously). Raffles were rambled off for what seemed like hours (mostly seemed long because I didn’t win anything) then there were results. Much to my surprise, I ended up second in my age category. They have super cute homemade cookie medals. I also got a mug. This all made up for registering too late to get a shirt.

My time ended up being 23:53… not too impressive by my own standards, especially looking back at other times I have had on this course… but then again it’s pretty good for being a New Year’s Day race. People thought I was joking the night before when I said I was running a 5k in the morning. At the time I actually was joking… but I can’t pass up a race.

After raffling off the mother of all raffle prizes (a kayak) everyone quickly cleared out of Temple. Overall I’m glad I ran the race because it gave me so much energy for the rest of the day!

I hope you all had a great New Year’s Eve/Day and took advantage of any local 5k or other race to start the new year!