A friend of ours, Mike, went with us (and the remaining five people who promised to go bailed, making things pretty interesting...). One of the long-running jokes from those three days was the question we asked multiple times a day of whoever happened to jump in a lake first: "How's the water?"
"It's cold, but it feels great!"
I was reminded of that Saturday, when I did the Frozen Gnome 10K/50K race in Crystal Lake.
When I signed up for the race, it seemed like a great idea. Bonus: the race promised a butt slide hill on the course! Sold!
Last week, though, my enthusiasm waned as we hit the coldest temps of the winter so far, with highs struggling to break the zero-degree mark. I've always run when it's at least a single digit out. This would be the coldest run I'd ever undertaken. We also had decent snow on the ground for the first time this season.
By Friday night I was kind of dreading the race internally, though I was trying to keep a good outward attitude about it as I and my running pals talked about whether we were still going to do this.
I texted my Sioux Falls friend, from whom I've gotten so much great running advice over the years. Since she tends to answer my texts and she runs in any kind of weather, I ran by her my wardrobe plan: smartwool socks and knee socks over them; tights; Icebreaker base layer, fleece, winter running jacket, balaclava, hat, gloves. Was I missing anything? She told me to add a pair of windpants and a tanktop underneath.
I felt a bit better about this. South Dakotans do not mess around.
My friend Krista picked me up at 5:15. My weather app on my phone said it was 0 degrees. I scurried into her car and we grunted our good mornings. Then we laughed, as she'd just texted me a few minutes prior to let me know someone just biked past her car as she was warming it up. Yes, biked!! Perspective!
We picked up more friends, Janelle in the city and Lindsay in the burbs along the way. A fun group of women always makes a race great.
I had no idea Crystal Lake was not a real Chicago suburb, and in fact was somewhere close to East Jesus. It was clear the heck out there.
I was nervous about making the 11:45 a.m. hair appointment I'd scheduled back in the city. Uh oh. My husband tells me I have a tendency to overschedule. It tooked like he was right this time.
When we got to the race, it was -4. The sky was lightening, at least. We braced ourselves and scampered out of her Corolla to the packet pickup.
Scampered as in, holy crap, it was so damn cold. My hands hurt immediately. I was shaking in my down parka, which I did not plan on running in. We trudged through six inches of fresh snow just to get there and back.
Oh man, what had we gotten ourselves into.
We hid in the car until 7:38. That's nice about small races -- you can hide in the car practically until it's time to start. You could never do that crap in city races.
Finally, it was 7:45 and time to go. I saw my co-worker Bill, also a newbie ultrarunner. He was attempting the 50K. (Whoa. And he got it done, amazing!) The race director gave a few directors and said
the start line is that second big tree over there. We laughed. I love small races!
Finally, we were off! Single file, through fresh snow and a rising sun. So, so pretty.
I warmed up quickly. And so did the course -- immediately we had hills. What makes hills harder? Fresh snow! It had been awhile since I'd run on snow, but it was so breath-takingly pretty out there, I didn't care. I panted, but it felt great!
About a mile and a half in, something was wrong. To my left, a group of runners in front of me had stopped and congregated atop a small hill. To my right, down the hill, was another group of runners.
My buddy Janelle, who shares my habit of colorful language, was "what the f?" "what the f is going on?" Everyone was asking that.
We'd all gotten off course.
I had no idea of where I even was. So much for two years of Brownie Scouts and that one year of Girl Scouts. Huh.
C'mon, experienced trail runners, lead us out of this before we freeze, I thought.
I took a picture at that point, after which my iPhone let me know it was too damn cold and died.
 |
| Oops, my glove snuck into this photo. Full disclosure: I'm an ex-Sun-Times reporter. And everyone knows reporters are crap photographers. |
Groupthink won out and we all started following each other like lemmings. Fortunately, it was the right lemmings and we were back on the course.
We kept running through what I can describe with the "winter wonderland" cliche. It was like a postcard. There were low hanging trees and narrow paths that required us to run single-file. Snow draped every tree and carpeted the ground. It felt like I was in Wisconsin (or maybe it was the several runners wearing Packer hats. Rub it in, guys, rub it in. That Dallas receiver ref call was crap. And I hate the Cowboys.)
Anyway.
I figured we must have gone way off course because it felt like it took forever to get to the water stop around the 4-mile mark. It was super snowy and super hilly.
Before the water stop, though, we stopped, lined up on a steep, snowy hill, as if we were all at a water park and in line for the tallest slide.
Butt slide hill!!
At the top, we had two options: Walk down a steep hill with a rope, or slide down a steep, slightly icy hill that people were sliding down super fast. I was nervous!
I opted to slide down, and OMG. It was so fast and so fun. I screamed all the way down and was terrified I was going to slam into the guy in front of me. I bet he was grateful for my hollering because he bolted out of my way in time. Whew. Good thing I have a loud mom yell thing going.
We euphorically trudged on. Then, not so euphorically.
At this point I had to have a little chat in my head with myself. Because I was tired, I was beating myself up in my head. How could I have run an ultra just two months ago and now be so tired just doing a 10k, I kept thinking.
I told myself I was being so dumb about this and to stop being an idiot. This was a really hilly course and I had not run on snow for a longgggg time. It was hard. Don't fight it, just accept it.
Past the water stop, it was slow going. I was tired and kept telling myself that was OK. I had no idea where we were or how much further, and could not possibly imagine doing this 10K loop another four times, as the 50K runners would.
But I was still so happy to be out there, and relieved I wasn't cold at all. My eyelashes had ice on them, and so did the hair hanging out of my hat. My friends and I kept pointing out to each other where ice had formed on our heads. It was so cool and freaky.
Finally, we saw the finish line/aid station. Yay! I finished at 1:48. I'm normally able to run a 10K in under an hour, so that was a looonnnggg 10K. And my coldest run/race ever was done.
felt tired, but elated. I did it!
I wound up missing my hair appointment. My hair will continue to be a wild, woolly and silver-tinged mess for a little longer. Oh well.
A huge thank you to the McHenry County Ultra Running Dudes and Dudettes (MUDD) for a fantastic race! It was cold but it felt great!
However, I will probably stick to your 10K if I come back...
P.S. Someone told us we wound up running 6.59 miles. Which is really only slightly more than 6.2 miles. Haha. I was so convinced we'd run a mile extra or more. Dork.
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