WinterFast

This is my race, cold, snow, short, perfect. Winter Blast is the one race I can count on to be in my sweet spot for races temperature wise. This will be the fourth year running it and the previous three all have been good times for me. I call it my race because it's one of the few times most people know me, as the guy in shorts.

Well, the one thing I'm known for isn't working today and I'm essentially the Invisible Man. This global warming thing is no joke! Instead of standing out in shorts, the people wearing pants are the odd ones today. The announcement made prior to race start, the temps today are more than the first three years temps combined. So much for my one advantage.

Prior to start, struggled with finding my zone. In what has become an almost regular occurrence, I'm alone again. No buzz from the Superstars, no outrageous requests from CT (out of town), just me.

Waaaaarm goes the gun.  The first four miles were fairly uneventful. Worried a little about the wind, but didn't seem to notice it any in these miles. Somewhere around mile four, got a little demoralized as a guy caught me from behind and powered ahead. Even though I felt good, felt fast, wasn't expecting to get passed so easily. Confidence returned as I watched him make the turn for the 10K, that makes more sense.

In the long straight away, I finally cheated and looked at my watch as it chirped for the last mile. It clocked a 6:45 mile, for my mile seven. Runner fuzz logic was definitely active, first thought was damn watch isn't reading right, figures. Mile eight chirps, 6:48! While I knew I was working hard, I couldn't figure out how I was clocking miles this fast, that's almost 5K pace.

Mile nine, cleared the fuzzy runner's logic, turning into a full force headwind. Awww, that explains a lot. Here's the payback for all those easy miles. The final miles were nothing easy, knew it was going to be close for a PR, but it was going to have to be earned into the wind.

The next four miles, all the glorious miles with the wind at my back, gone. The real work started here. At no point did the extra gear show up and I wasn't even sure if or how close I'd be to my PR I'd be, mentally just told myself to keep going and see what happens.

Last curve the clock came into view and knew I had it. One of the running coaches this year shared a TED talk explaining the benefits as to why runners throw their hands up crossing the line to signal their accomplishment. It's never crossed my mind before, probably because I'm always too tired to have any energy to even bother. This time, it did feel like an accomplishment to PR a time that I didn't think I'd ever be able to top. Arms raised, finishing strong!