At 23 degrees F, feels like 12, this was the coldest race I have ever run. Warming up was unpleasant. After my warmup and before the race I put some chemical heat warmers on my socks and donned a neck warmer. I still wasn't excited about getting out of the car again. I did one more warm-up lap around the HS track and found J4 and we tried to wait out of the wind. I was shivering so he put his arms around me and we tried to keep each other warm. Ordinarily that's the kind of thing I would see and think, "Get a room please," but I was cold and we were at a Valentine's Day race!! I think there is more grossness leeway.
We went over to the start and lined up near the line and were soon off! There were a handful of women ahead of me including some in pink tutus. In the first 50 yards I definitely regretted running 10 miles yesterday. J4 was behind me (he ran 11 miles yesterday) but he passed me about 1/2 mile in. Then a couple of women passed me: yellow jacket woman and blue sweatshirt girl (she was younger). We all maintained this positioning for a while as we went over the rolling hills course. I will say, when you are only running 3.1 miles the race passes quickly. One mile came around and I realized-only 1/2 a mile before the turnaround! It was kind of awesome.
There was snow and ice on the course and as the race progressed J4 yelled out from ahead of me where it was icy and slippery.
I slowly reeled J4 in and passed him with about 1/2 mile to go and yellow jacket and blue sweatshirt girl were just ahead of him. I passed those two just before we turned onto the track for the last ~250 yards. J4 was cheering me on and yelling at me that the women were going to try and catch me and to MOVE. The girl in blue got the closest and I was properly motivated to keep it up. In the final backstretch J4 made his move and sprinted past me with a kick I haven't seen before even by Usain Bolt!! There was definitely some primal male power fueling him if you ask me! :) He beat me by 2 seconds with a 20:54, someone finished between us, and I rolled in with 20:56. The girl in the blue sweatshirt finished...behind me. I'm not sure of her time. Then yellow jacket woman rolled in followed by her boyfriend 35 seconds behind her.
J4 and I cooled down and also signed up on posterboard as a team in the boyfriend/girlfriend category. At the end of the day I was 2nd F 30-34, J4 was 5 M 30-34, and, most importantly for the Valentine's Day race, we were #1 boyfriend/girlfriend! Woot! (We're standing in front of the bf/gf sign below). Yellow jacket woman and her boyfriend were second in the category so it was close!
Awesome job and congrats on the placings! Good to see you guys out there. That might have been one of the few days where I was glad to not be running. Rough day, but glad so many people still showed up!
Posted by: LesserisMore | February 13, 2012 at 11:02 AM
Oh my gosh you mean you actually HUGGED in public?
J/k
Congrats you guys, definitely a power running couple!
Posted by: Gina | February 13, 2012 at 04:40 PM
23 degrees was your coldest race? Weak! I ran one race where they left the table with the awards at the finish and said "If your age group is still there, take a trophy" as it was maybe 9 degrees.
Posted by: Danielle in Seattle | February 15, 2012 at 01:55 PM