Silly Season for Running

I'm way behind in blogging.  I have a bunch of posts started and I need to get caught up!  
I call this time of year silly season!  There's Halloween runs, Turkey Trots, and Christmas themed runs where we dress up, act silly and run! 
My silly season started with one of my yearly favorites, the Headless Horseman 5K in Howell, MI. 
I wore my usual Halloween pumpkin shirt and some light up stuff

running pumpkin

 

I light up when it gets dark!

This was two weeks post Chicago Marathon; I had no goals other than to enjoy the unique course.  The race is a night race and is run in the dark. The course makes a loop through a park and runs along a lake shore then goes down the street and winds through a big cemetery and again along the lake shore.  I've never come close to placing in this race so I left soon after finishing since I had another race early the next morning.  I found out the following afternoon that I had placed in my age group.  Oh well!  I was surprised that I ran an 8:46 pace! 
The next morning I was a pacer for a 5K.  This was the Wicked Halloween Run.  I was a pumpkin again!  I wore the same thing as I did the night before.  I was going to be pacing the 10K as I did in their two previous races this year but at the last minute I was reassigned to the 5K.  I was told that there was a lot of requests to have pacers in the 5K as well as the 10K.  I was the 10 minute per mile pacer.  During the race I kept hearing people around me saying that the pacer is going too fast.  Sometimes they even said it to me.  I had my Garmin set to give me splits every quarter mile and I was always within a few seconds of 2:30.  I hit the first mile at 10:03 and the second at 10:06 so, if anything, I was a bit slow, not too fast.  I don't know if these people thought that they were running faster than 10 minute miles but I was right on pace.  During the last mile I caught up to a dude in a blue hairy suit of some kind.  He saw me behind him with my 10 min sign and sped up to stay ahead of me.  I soon caught up to him again and again he sped up to stay ahead of me.  I knew that he must be getting tired and I could so leave him in my dust but I couldn't do that since I was a pacer.  He started calling me the grim reaper.  Yep, the 10 minute pacer is the same as a grim reaper!  It rained during part of the race so I was wet and cold after finishing, my feet included.  I was glad that I had clothes and even dry shoes to change into.
So, that covers Halloween.  Next up was the Lightfest 8K, one of my favorite fun events each year.  I will finish that post soon.