Lessons from the Cold
Hi all!
First, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far to my Team in Training marathon effort. I can't get there without those dollars (for a great cause, of course- whose life has NOT been affected by cancer in some way?!) If you haven't contributed yet, I am trying to do a push right now to get to the half-way point of $1900 by February 11th-my recommitment date (the date you have to put up or shut up in terms of your fundraising!). You can make your dollars go even further if your company has a matching gift program! Let me know if you need more info on that...
On Sunday morning, I ran the first race of the Continental Airlines Grand Prix series- a half-marathon in each of the 5 boroughs. The kick-off half-marathon was the Manhattan event, in Central Park. It was 15 degrees out. The subways were the usual weekend racket: re-routings, running in sections, etc., etc. Still 5,000 crazy people (you're allowed to call people crazy if you are part of the group you're describing...oh, who am I kidding- I call people crazy -and that's the nice extreme- all the time) toed the line and ran the loops of the park. I was not convinced that I had it in me. I wasn't racing this race; rather, I was using it as a gauge to test out the timing of my new hydration and fueling plan and getting the week's miles under my belt. plus, getting the memory of my last half out of my head. And I succeeded, mostly. My only goal was to come in under 2 hours, even if by a second. I ran a very conservative race pace and came in at 1:59:21.
The hydration test run had one additional component that I hadn't really anticipated, though. Um, when it's 15 degrees out and you're carrying your own water, you forget it's 15 degrees because you are nice and toasty, what with the 13 miles to run and all. The water you're carrying, however, is not nice and toasty. In fact, it's frozen. That's right, it's can-not-possibly-drink-from- this-bottle-because-ice-crystals-have-formed-and-the-water-is-now-chunky-and-not-going-through-that-tiny-spout frozen. Awesome. The water at the fluid stations were the same way. You had to squeeze the cup to crack the ice layer on top to get to the water below it, which is fine, except now there's water on your running clothes that quickly turns to more ice crystals. We all looked like Mr. Freeze out there. But, we had some fun....several of my teammates ran PR's, I suspect because they were hoping to make it home before their fingers fell off from frostbite.
For me, yesterday's race was exactly 3 months until I toe the line in Nashville, where it will certainly NOT be 15 degrees at race time. But the best thing I accomplished yesterday was overcoming my biggest hurdle- not the weather, but myself. It was not my fastest race but it was my most thoughtful one so far. I controlled the race. I climbed the hills without swearing (too much) and felt good and strong doing it. Oh, and I called to reserve my spot in tonight's super popular spin class while I was somewhere between miles 3 and 4. It sells out quickly and 10am would have been too late to get a spot in the class- a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Besides, I am sure that in addition to me sharing it with you, some other runners got to share it with their friends...."you'll never believe what this girl did during the race...she called and booked her next workout!" then again, runners WOULD believe it. Plus, spin helps me think about my leg turn-over, especially in the hills!
I'm still a long way from being the best runner I can be, I know, but I'm sure having fun (and sometimes, apparently, fun feels like torture) figuring it out. Thanks for coming along for the ride, er, miles!
First, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far to my Team in Training marathon effort. I can't get there without those dollars (for a great cause, of course- whose life has NOT been affected by cancer in some way?!) If you haven't contributed yet, I am trying to do a push right now to get to the half-way point of $1900 by February 11th-my recommitment date (the date you have to put up or shut up in terms of your fundraising!). You can make your dollars go even further if your company has a matching gift program! Let me know if you need more info on that...
On Sunday morning, I ran the first race of the Continental Airlines Grand Prix series- a half-marathon in each of the 5 boroughs. The kick-off half-marathon was the Manhattan event, in Central Park. It was 15 degrees out. The subways were the usual weekend racket: re-routings, running in sections, etc., etc. Still 5,000 crazy people (you're allowed to call people crazy if you are part of the group you're describing...oh, who am I kidding- I call people crazy -and that's the nice extreme- all the time) toed the line and ran the loops of the park. I was not convinced that I had it in me. I wasn't racing this race; rather, I was using it as a gauge to test out the timing of my new hydration and fueling plan and getting the week's miles under my belt. plus, getting the memory of my last half out of my head. And I succeeded, mostly. My only goal was to come in under 2 hours, even if by a second. I ran a very conservative race pace and came in at 1:59:21.
The hydration test run had one additional component that I hadn't really anticipated, though. Um, when it's 15 degrees out and you're carrying your own water, you forget it's 15 degrees because you are nice and toasty, what with the 13 miles to run and all. The water you're carrying, however, is not nice and toasty. In fact, it's frozen. That's right, it's can-not-possibly-drink-from- this-bottle-because-ice-crystals-have-formed-and-the-water-is-now-chunky-and-not-going-through-that-tiny-spout frozen. Awesome. The water at the fluid stations were the same way. You had to squeeze the cup to crack the ice layer on top to get to the water below it, which is fine, except now there's water on your running clothes that quickly turns to more ice crystals. We all looked like Mr. Freeze out there. But, we had some fun....several of my teammates ran PR's, I suspect because they were hoping to make it home before their fingers fell off from frostbite.
For me, yesterday's race was exactly 3 months until I toe the line in Nashville, where it will certainly NOT be 15 degrees at race time. But the best thing I accomplished yesterday was overcoming my biggest hurdle- not the weather, but myself. It was not my fastest race but it was my most thoughtful one so far. I controlled the race. I climbed the hills without swearing (too much) and felt good and strong doing it. Oh, and I called to reserve my spot in tonight's super popular spin class while I was somewhere between miles 3 and 4. It sells out quickly and 10am would have been too late to get a spot in the class- a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Besides, I am sure that in addition to me sharing it with you, some other runners got to share it with their friends...."you'll never believe what this girl did during the race...she called and booked her next workout!" then again, runners WOULD believe it. Plus, spin helps me think about my leg turn-over, especially in the hills!
I'm still a long way from being the best runner I can be, I know, but I'm sure having fun (and sometimes, apparently, fun feels like torture) figuring it out. Thanks for coming along for the ride, er, miles!
posted by justsaying at 3:42 PM
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