And They’re Off

Another month, another race completed. February’s race was the Frozen Buns 5K in Wheaton. Nothings was really going in my favor and it would have been a heck of a lot easier to just stay home, but of course I am glad I didn’t. The day started at about 4:30 am, I just couldn’t sleep. I caught up on the shows filling up the DVR and hoped for sleep that never came. The weather was a bit iffy too and the rain started coming down en route to the race. Bad way time to figure out the windshield wipers don’t actually wipe the windshield, especially when you are on the expressway. Doesn’t make for fun motoring. Thanks to a Google Map fail I made it to the start line just in the nick of time, despite leaving the house extra early.

At the starting line is when the rain REALLY began to come down, I thought my contacts were going to float out of my eyes at one point. The 180 of us or so were wondering to ourselves, we really paid for this? I mean standing outside in 30° weather with the rain pouring down is not many people’s idea of fun. Dedication or stupidity, the line is blurred.

The race was located in a wooded area and was actually run on a trail. It was an equestrian course or sorts, we even ran through the horse race gates at the start and finish. It looped through prairie fields that I am sure provides beautiful scenery, I did not see much but my feet. The gravel path was frozen solid with patches ice, snow mounds, and puddles. And oh yea, horse poop! Sound awful? Nah, I actually liked running on the trail and it sure beat the alternative which was running six loops of the equestrian track. Given the trail conditions and the rain I took it a bit easy on my pace to avoid a fall. Actually, it turned out the race was almost a ½ mile over a 5K so my pace did not end up being that far off the mark. They ended up calling it a 3.5 miles race so in the end I was OK with my time, especially considering I have not done much any running in the last two weeks.

Planning another 5K in March!