Santa Hustle 5K

Santa Hustle 5K - December 8, 2013

time = 23:47:67
pace = 7:40 average
placed 3rd in my age group (40-44) out of 94

placed 10th in women out of 988
placed 43rd overall out of 1353

after the drumstick dash last weekend i've been dreading this run for the simple fact that i have decided that racing in cold weather is not for me.  i love to run all year long but this racing… not a fan.

so i woke up around 4am (as is customary for me these days) and realized that i could sleep for another 2 hours so i went back to sleep.  i woke up bolt upright because i thought i was late and i was having some lame dream about something that i don't remember except that it has left me with an icky feeling so i know it wasn't a good dream.  when i woke up it was 6:15am and i was relieved because i wasn't late.  i got out of bed, took care of the dogs, used the bathroom, and had some juice, vitamins, and a banana which is also customary for me on a race day.

i layered up in enough stuff that i thought i'd be warm enough but not too warm when i was running and took this picture.  you can't really tell i guess but i'm wearing the following:
sports bra
tank top
long sleeve thermal
nike dri-fit 1/2 zip
north face summit series wind/water proof jacket
the santa hustle shirt

pair that with some smart wool knee high socks and running tights and i was good to go.  i'll just say right now that my butt was FREEZING as per usual in my running tights.  i wish lululemon made some super warm tights but no such luck for me…

moving on… i was meeting megan for the race.  today was her 34th birthday and she is IN LOVE with christmas so what better way to celebrate than with a santa run?  i arrived early because the race location was 1/2 hour from my house and i was worried about parking.  thankfully i got excellent parking and when megan arrived there was still some parking in the lot i was in so BONUS! we were close to each other AND no one had to pay for parking.  it was about 8am now and we decided to head to the porto-pottys.  i have never sat on a colder seat in all my life!  we wandered over to a huge blow up santa, took a picture

and decided it was far to cold to be standing around outside when we could go sit in the heated car so we went back to the car.  it was 20 degrees, overcast, and waiting for the snow to begin.  we sat in the car for another 10 minutes and then headed to the start.  we began walking towards the front and hit a green rope where they asked us if we would be running the whole time.  i (incredulously) said OF COURSE! so they let us through.  apparently, behind the rope is for walkers.  megan was sick so she was hacking up lungs but took some dayquil and thought she'd be fine.  there was no fan fair really for the start… just a sort of "GO" and off we went.  i took off too fast as usual and when i realized i was running sub-7 i slowed down.  i didn't want to poop out at the end like with the drumstick dash.  so i tempered my pace and tried to keep it faster than an 8min mile.  i really was most interested in getting an open space to run in so once i got there i slowed my roll.  i was just trying to run a comfortable pace and when checking my garmin realized that i was maintaining a sub-8 which is great!  i really didn't have a desired finish time in mind for this race which is probably a good thing.  it was really cold out and when that is the case my lower half doesn't warm up as fast as i'd like.  this is the main reason i'm not interested in doing any more winter runs… i feel i'm prone to injury if i'm not sufficiently warmed up.  (more about that later)  so i'm just running along and enjoying all the santas… they had cookie stops, the customary water/gatorade stops, and then candy stops!  i skipped all of them because for a 5K in temperate or cold weather i figure i can wait to get my water at the end.  this was an out and back course so i was trying to count the ladies who were ahead of me.  turns out i was 4 off from where i thought i was… i thought i was in 6th place but in the end i was in 10th place.  not bad… at the turn around i was grouped with a 30-something guy and a little girl who i guessed was 10… turns out the guy was 33 and the girl was 11.  either way i was pacing them and when the girl pulled ahead a bit i turned to the guy and said "i'm gonna stick with you." to which he replied "i'm trying to do the same thing with her!"…

so we just kept pace with the girl (who finished 4 seconds ahead of me… might as well have been a lifetime).  she was so cute!  she was running effortlessly and told both me and the guy "good job" more than once!  i love runners!  at the end when she saw the finish she exclaimed "oh! there's the end!" and took off like speedy gonzales!  it was adorable… if it wouldn't have put me behind her anyway.  the guy took off at the same time and i was alone to come into the finish.  i was just behind both of them tho' and i tried to gun it with little success i think.  at the finish, everything was frozen.  bananas, water, and the gatorade had a little layer of ice on top.  i took a water and drank a shot of gatorade and walked to the end with the guy… i'm going to call him by his name now since i read it on the results.  jeff and i walked to the end and caught our breath and exchanged pleasantries.  he said that doing things like this let us know we're alive when i said how awful that was.  he's right.

things like this… running in races, running in cold, running with strangers… i love all of it even when i hate it.  even when it's hard.  even when i think i don't love it… I.LOVE.IT!

i waited to cheer megan on as she crossed the finish and she did not look so good.  running and being sick simply wasn't agreeing with her and man… i felt bad but she was a trooper and finished in a respectable time especially for being sick!  she has nowhere to go but up even tho' her time was still pretty great.  looking at my splits it looks like i held pretty steady the whole time and turns out… i DID kick it in to gear at the very end for a moment.  my time on my garmin is a bit different than the time my chip clocked me at but i'm pretty happy either way.  3rd in my age group is pretty good.  not awesome but pretty good for the weather… after we were both done we went to warm up in the car for a bit because we were going to stay for the awards.  when we went back there was an announcement stating that they would mail the awards because the weather was beginning to get bad.  it was really starting to snow now and got windy.  i was glad because it was really cold.  on the way home the snow was really making a mess of it on the highway… as i approached my town tho' it was less and less snow.  the further away from the lake i got the less snow there was.  once i was home there was a lot of talk on the news of accidents and telling people to stay home and off the roads.  it's a good thing they decided to not do the awards.  the one thing i wasn't happy about is that they said there would be heated tents and there weren't.  that was a bummer.  when its so cold out they really should have a place for people to stay warm.  i loved that the course was flat and fast… it makes a huge difference in the cold i think.  once i was sitting in my car i realized that my ankle feels really wonky.  both of my ankles have been wonky since my last race and i'm not really sure why.  the right tho'… has been getting worse and worse pain wise as today has gone on.  we'll see how it is tomorrow.  it's so disappointing to be injured.  i just want to feel good so that i can train and run.  i'd like to do a marathon in april but if my ankles don't start to cooperate i might have to put that off.

so the end of the story… if you don't mind racing in cold then this is a great run!  apparently its a new course from last year and people seem to like it better.  i thought it was pretty great.  ran along the lakefront the whole time which is quite pretty.  if it weren't so cold out i'd definitely do it again.