Friday, January 27, 2012

Polar Dash-ing Through the Snow

My first race of 2012 is in the books. It also happens to be my first-ever 10K. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... Polar Dash!

After a snowstorm dumped six inches of the good stuff all over Chicagoland a week ago, Linda and I braved the elements and travelled into the city for a little fun in the ... snow. Saturday, January 21 was a snowy morning at the lakefront, and with a ton of snow already on the ground, it promised to be an interesting run.

We had a blast, I'm not gonna lie. It was different, to be sure, but enjoyable to be running on the lakefront ... while it snowed ... wearing a mask that made me look like a serial killer. I wish I were joking.

It was slow going. I suspected I'd be pokey, because I'm being uber-cautious right now. With the half marathon looming, I do not want to be injured. So I'm not terribly proud of my results - I finished the 10K (that's 6.2 miles, for those of you converting from metric) in 1:33:32, or at a pace of about 15:04 per mile. As it was, I finished 624 out of 669 total runners, and 403 out of 434 women. For a girl who previously ran a 16-minute mile, running a 15 in tough weather conditions is completely acceptable. I'm happy with it.

Naturally, post-race we found ourselves enjoying a little breakfast and proudly wearing our medals. It's funny, because a few years ago, if someone had told me I would choose to head out, in the middle of winter, to run in the snow, I would have laughed, out loud, at the ridiculousness of it. But here I am ... and it's a pretty cool feeling.

Next up: Race Report for the Frozen Zucchini Snowshoe Race that wasn't on snowshoes because there wasn't enough snow.







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