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November 26, 2005
Defrosting
Although the forecast for today from yesterday looked better than it was yesterday, it was still awfully cold out this morning. I should know better than to expect anything else. Every year it is absolutely freezing for the club cross country race. In the five years (or more) that I have done this race, I can not remember a single year that it was not cold. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I believe that I may have suffered some brain damage earlier.
The races didn't start until 10 this morning, but I got out there really early. This was more a result of poor sleeping than anything else. It seemed like a better idea to go out to the park and help out some than to sit around and stuff my face with bagels and coffee. After taking care of some of the set-up and picking up my number, I got back into the car to stay warm before heading out to warm-up. While sitting there and listening to the radio, I heard a weather report that stated that it was 31 degrees. For some reason, the park where the race is tends to be, or at least feel, about ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the area. I felt pretty darn awful while warming up. So awful that the question of being able to finish the race without walking kept crossing my mind. After my pathetic warm-up, which really only served the purpose of getting used to the cold again, I put on my racing outfit and changed out of my trainers into my spikes. I truly enjoy running in spikes and don't get the opportunity to wear them all that often anymore. My calves probably thank me for not wearing them all that often, they are tight enough as it is. I got my jacket back on and headed down to the starting line.
This race is one race that really freaks me out. Some real studs have shown up at this race in the past. Some years, even in very good shape, I've finished out of the money. You just never know who is going to be there. The women's race is still the smallest of the races, but it is getting bigger every year. It turns out I was the only person stupid enough to race in a bra top and shorts, but I did have enough sense to wear gloves and a hat-not that it made much of a difference. J, who organizes the race and is the starter, was nice enough to take my jacket to the start for me.
From running the course a few times over the past few weeks, I knew that if I made it through the first half OK, I would be able to pick off people close to me. About the first 1000 meters are grassy without too much rocks. The next 800 or so are downhill and very rocky. I think that I was in about 7th or 8th at the mile. My friend A was about fifteen yards in front of me and said that she thinks she went through in 6:09 and was afraid to go any faster for safety purposes. I was too scared to look down at my watch because the footing is so poor. From the end of that downhill portion there is a ton of climbing-the first part is gradual and in the woods followed by a steep hill out in the open. Once I got to the bottom of that hill I was home free. I started to pass some people at this point. At the top of the major hill was the first slippery part. Coming down from here I caught up to A and started to feel better. I'm not exactly sure of what the 2 mile split was, but it had to be slow-it's physically impossible to run even splits on this course. Going up the short steep hill right after the 2 mile mark was the second really slippery area I found. The frost had just started to melt when we raced and the paths that are usually used were slick. I started to feel really strong as we were getting to this point but the two women in front of me were too far out to catch. If the race had been 6K or 8K I think I would have caught them. I ended up 5th in the open women finishing around 20:32-only a few seconds off my best time ever on this course, run when I was in exceptional shape, the year that I PR'd at everything.
I met up with some of the other girls and warmed down for about 20 minutes. We tried to run really easy because the course just beats up your body here. After warming down, I got out of all the clothes that I ran in and put on dry stuff for the awards (and standing around before). In addition to the nominal amount of money that I won, I also won a month membership at another gym that is all the way on the other side of town.
When I got home and was starving, I decided that taking a hot shower was more important than eating first. When I got into the shower, my fingers, not just my fingernails, were bluish. Standing under the hot shower and thinking about the hot soup that I would be eating soon started to help with the thawing process. I still haven't really thawed out yet, but at least my fingers aren't blue anymore.
I have to hem the pants that I bought to wear tonight at some point this afternoon. I used to have an issue that I could nver find pants long enough for my legs, but it seems that now the trend is to make pants for amazon women. Even in the small sizes the inseams are for people who are nearly six feet tall. So even with my legs being too long for my body and heels on, the pants still need to come up about a half an inch. With my poor sewing skills this will be an interesting task to tackle. Whatever happens tonight, it should be a fun night...
Posted by Blondie at November 26, 2005 03:04 PM
Comments
I wanted to congratulate you on all your awesome racing recently. You've been doing so much racing I'm having a hard time keeping up! But I know you've been running really fast and it seems like you've been mentioning lots of PR's or "close to" PRs and goal times. Great work! Hope you eventually thawed out and had fun at your reunion... :)
Posted by: Beth at November 26, 2005 03:56 PM
Strong work in both your races. Seems like a lot of the bloggers had fast Thanksgiving weekends, which is no nice to read!
(and yay for your mom, too!)
Posted by: jenandmats at November 26, 2005 11:23 PM
I'm laughing at this post because I can NEVER find pants that are long enough for me. I'm not quite 6 feet tall or an amazon (5'8"), but I'm ALL legs :-)
Posted by: Caitlin at November 27, 2005 09:50 PM