Polar Dash

January1st New Years Day I ran the Polar Dash. The theme of the day was "Suck it up Princess"! The weather was our foe. I believe by the start of the race it may have warmed up to 7 above, however the windchill was 15 below. With that said, can you believe I can't complain. The race was well organized. They had us assigned to various parking lots, warm shuttle buses waited for us and dropped us off at the race site, the race site had plenty of potties and tents to stand in while we waited for the start protected us from the elements and were fairly warm. Thankfully my friend Beth had some toe warmers for me and hand warmers. Those toe warmers saved my life. But even then by the start time I couldn't feel my feet. It felt really strange when we started to run because I really couldn't feel my feet. However by mile 3 I got my feeling back and my whole body had warmed up and it was time to take the gloves off, figuritively and literally!

I started the race off with my friends Deb and Beth and it was a bit too fast for me. The first mile was 9:46. I really like my first mile to be a bit slower. So to make up for it my 2nd mile was slower at a 10:03 pace. I lost Deb and Beth but I could see them just ahead of me. I remembered Beth's advice and just ran my own race. Mile 3 was 9:42, Mile 4 was 9:45, Mile 5 was 9:50. It was about this point when I caught up to Deb and Beth and we did that last mile at a 9:32 pace. Official end time: 59:39. The princesses totally sucked it up!

Notes to self about running in a race: Eat oatmeal for breakfast, bring a bar or banana to eat before race, 2 layers on the bottom would've been fine, have boots on during the wait and put in drop bag - duh, start slower then negative split, have toe and hand warmers, don't be scared of the weather report!