S-No-W Fun Run Recap

S-No-W Fun Run. Those three little words = massive amounts of craziness.  And this year was no exception.

This is midway through the night.

 John's sweet dance moves helped him win the Hunk Dance.

For those of you who live under a rock and don't know what S-No-W Fun Run is, it is a 5 mile run with a 5 hour after-party.  Big emphasis on the 5 hour after-party.  Truthfully, most people do the run so that they can party party party.  

When I say after-party, that is probably an understatement.  As soon as you finish the race, you are greeted inside by the Schnapps Stop.  Literally hundreds of Schnapps (and Rum Chata this year!!!!) to choose from. 

After you get your Schnapps, you go inside the grand ballroom to get in line for the food.  Standard burgers, brats, chips and cookies, but when you're partying for 5 hours, you need any fuel you can get.

Then there's the beer.  Four stations in the four corners of the ballroom.  Stacked with beer and pop throughout the night (yes, this year they did run out, but only for like 15 minutes).

So there's the drinks and food that make this race fun. 

And then there's the dancing.  There's this thing called the Sausage Dance, which is when all of the ladies get out on the dance floor and pretty much have a dance off.  There are a bunch of male judges (plus the two Playboy Playmates, really) who come out the first round and put a mini sausage necklace around you if they like your dancing.  Those who don't have a sausage by the end of the song are asked to leave the dance floor.  The next round, same thing goes on but there are less sausages to give away... this goes on for probably 3 rounds before it goes up to the audience for a narrowed down dance off.  6 or so girls are chosen as the winners by the judges, then the crowd cheers for them.  The winning 3 then have a dance off to see who is the true Sausage Queen.  

Unfortunately, we missed this part this year....because we were getting these crazy outfits ready.

More on this after the Hunk Dance recap.

After the Sausage Dance is the Hunk Dance.  Same thing, but instead of a girls' dance off, it's a guys' dance off.  Naturally, Ryan's best friend John (an incredible dancer, a PE teacher, and just a crazy energetic guy) was getting pumped up about this dance.  As his friends, we coached him throughout his dances and he kept getting to the next round.  Finally, when it came down to the final 6, he stripped down to his LMFAO outfit (minus the above box on his head) and just went crazy: break dancing, shuffling, the worm...it was unreal.

He won.  This was his crown.

With probably 30 minutes left in the evening, the DJ FINALLY played LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem"....we all stripped off our jeans and put our dancing wigs/sunglasses/mustaches on and got on stage.  Those of you who know me know that I'm not a dancer.  However, when your husband's best friend is as good as he is at dancing and reeeeally wants you to learn the dance, it's hard to say no.  So Saturday morning before the 2:30pm race, Ryan, RJ and I had John teach us the dance.  This was the same dance that John did as his entrance with my cousin Lindsey for the wedding party entrances.

Honestly, it was awesome.  We were all coordinated and didn't miss a beat.  The crowd went nuts.

They do awards at some point, too.  They call you up in 10-year age groups (i.e. 20-29) and hand out medals to the top 2.  Well, the Playboy bunnies hand out the medals.

Nic and his friends with their awards.

Aaaand these are the Playboy Bunnies.

SO, this race is more than a race.  Of course, competitive runners come to compete, but it really is more about the after party.  That being said, here is my race recap.

MILE 1-- 5:50.  My Saucony Dick Pond Fast Track racing teammates [Joe (running buddy), Mike (pushing and pacing us all), Shannon, Jessica and a few others] all got in a nice group.  Joe and I had texted the night before about what our goals were, and decided breaking 30 sounded achievable if we could work together.  When I saw him with Shannon and Jess, I knew that's right where I needed to be.  This mile felt easy and relaxed, but it was only the first mile...and we had another teammate ahead of us.

MILE 2--5:59.  Still felt pretty good going into this, and we were gaining on our teammate, Emma, ahead of us.  If we could catch her, we could all work as an even BIGGER pack to get after our attempt at breaking 30.  What a cool race for all of us.

MILE 3--5:57.  At mile 2.3x is where the turnaround is.  So it's not really halfway, but you feel like it should be. It was at this point that I started hearing cheers.  My DPFT teammates, my parent's Hillstriders Running Club friends, Lauren, Aunt Nancy, Nic's friends... it's pretty hard not to speed up when you hear so many positive cheers of encouragement.

MILE 4--6:02.  At about 3.25, I saw my dad walking along the side of the road.  He yelled to me that Ryan was winning and to "go get her"...meaning, Emma, the girl in front of me.  When I picked up the pace with the cheering, I had to break away from Jess and Shannon.  Joe had already sped ahead with Mike a bit, so I did have people that I could run with.  At probably 3.5, I caught up to Emma, who was running with Dave Schaefers (head guy of DPFT and someone who is super motivational).  Just before mile 4, I passed her and caught back up with Mike and Joe.  Joe and I took turns pushing each other as we were both definitely feeling tired.

MILE 5--6:04.  Right after mile 4 is a small uphill that winds through the Grand Geneva's groundskeeping area and someone's house I think.  During this part, Dave called to me that I was doing great but to keep it up.  Words I definitely needed to hear as at about 4.3miles, you get to go up this HUGE uphill that you started the race with (but running downhill in the beginning).  Ann Schaefers-Coles, Dave's sister, was at the hardest point in that uphill cheering and taking pictures...seriously what I needed to motivate me to push hard up that last part of the hill.  Once we turned, I knew we had just under a half mile to go.  This is where Mike got me going.  He told me to "run like you're scared."  He wasn't by any means saying there was a girl close to me (though there was), but moreso he was saying it to help me finish strong...

TOTAL-- 29:55...and that I did.  Once I saw that clock hit 29:49, I just HAULED it in.  Luckily, there were only probably 30 guys ahead of me that had to witness that ugly sprint...but, man, was it worth it. I achieved my "break-30 minutes" goal, which was truly my only goal going into the race.  The second place female, Shannon, finished 5 seconds behind me.  The girl I passed around 3.5, Emma, finished third, just 5 seconds in back of Shannon, and Jessica finished pretty quickly after her.  HUGE shout-out to Mike Cauley for kicking my butt and pushing me to finish strong--I cannot thank you enough:)

How incredible is it to run a race that is loaded with competition?  It was SO much fun working the Shannon and Jessica throughout this race.  I can't even count how many people told me how cool it was to see three bright pink jerseys pushing each other and running together.

Here's to hoping everyone else's first weekend of January was full of fun!