Surviving the Winter Running Scene

Normally, I consider myself a pretty tough cookie when it comes to the cold weather; I was born and raised in Minnesota after all, but these sub zero temps have not been my friend.  I've done just about everything to avoid them: basement treadmill, guesting at my mom's gym, my work's wellness center and running at the metrodome.  However, I did sign up for a 5K, and I decided I better suck it up and get my money's worth.  I've done one other winter 5K, and to be honest, I didn't love it.  So I braced myself for this one.  However, I was pleasantly surprised by a few nice factors.  Securian, the company sponsor for the race, did a really nice job of running the show.  Packet Pick-up was easy, free parking with skyway access to the start (so I didn't have to walk outside), and the swag was pretty good too.  Best of all, they had plenty of space inside for people to stay warm up until moments before the race began and get back inside moments afterward.

This race had a half marathon and 10K option as well, but I went with the 5K for a couple reasons.  1) It's freakin' cold here, so the 5K is the safe bet.  2) I want to do as many 5Ks as possible this year to increase my chances of a sub 30.  I realized a flaw in my last years plan was only signing up for only one 'serious' 5K.  Technically, I did 5 all together, but 2 were completely social, 1 was spontaneous, and 1 was more of a work function.  That last one was also at 4pm less than a week after my first half too, so not great timing.  Anyway, this year, lots of 5Ks and some other stuff too.

at the start 

The course runs through the downtown Saint Paul.  I've done a number of downtown Minneapolis runs, but none yet in Saint Paul.  The TC marathon ends at the capital which is just shy of downtown.  I felt like we were weaving and winding all over, but after looking at the actual course map, that might of been partially in my head.  What I will say affirmatively is that there were a lot of hills, both up and down.  I guess I didn't love that... reminded me that I could try re-visiting that whole idea about hill training.

After the marathon last fall, I took a pretty easy approach to fall/winter running.  While I enjoyed the time off, I'm naturally not quite in peak condition yet.  So for this race I just wanted to be under 35 mins.  My garmin was all sorts of wonky due to the temperature I assume, so I'm glad this race was chip timed.  As I approached the finish the most prominent clock said 43:XX ... which seemed fishy... it took me until after I finished and looked around a bit to realize it was the clock for the halfers and the 5K clock was in a different place.  However, I was able to check my time at a computer station immediately after the race (Did I mention this race was well run?) and found out I got 33:53.  It's not a PR, but still pretty good for me.  Even better, I was 23 out of 55 for my age/gender division (F20-29), which means I'm in the front half, so that's nice too.

This was great race to start 2013 with, I will be bookmarking this one for future years.

about to finish!