It was an early morning today, as we prepared to run the Dallas Hot Chocolate 15k that began at 7:55am. I wanted to take DART (Dallas public transit) to the race with my husband to see how comfortable I would be taking it by myself for the Rock 'n' Roll Half in March. There was a double murder at the station right down the road from our house on Tuesday, so you can understand my trepidation.
We awoke to the coldest morning of the year and warnings from the race medical director. The first note was urging runners slower than a 12 min/mile pace to switch to the 5k to avoid prolonged exposure to the cold. The other was the Urgent Weather Update on the website--a whopping 28 degrees with a wind chill of 17! Eeek!
So we layered on the clothes (I had 6 leaving the house and ran in 5 of them!), covered all of our skin and jumped on the train.
I look more ready for skiing than running!
The train was easy and was the best option for this morning's race, despite the 15 minute wait outside in the cold for a train transfer. A friend of mine got stuck in traffic on the freeway for over 30 mins and missed the start of the race. We had planned to run together, but I waited as long as possible. My husband wasn't quite as cold, as he decided to run in his down parka!
The bag drop was thankfully inside and we waited in the semi-warm building as long as we could. There was a bathroom in there, so no port-o-potties for me this race! They didn't smell the best, but they had hand dryers that felt amazing!
The course took us through some very nice neighborhoods in Dallas, also through some not so nice neighborhoods where I was glad I was with a crowd of people! There were very few spectators along the course, which was kind of a surprise for a race so big. I'm sure the cold drove people away. I started off the race with numb feet and it was after the 3 mile marker before I had feeling back in both of them. Once I had both feet working, I got into a groove and felt like I was making good time. There were an inordinate amount of walkers, so I spent a lot of my time working my way around them.
At one point, the wind knocked my hat off and I had to turn around and grab it before it flew away. Also, one of the lenses on my cheapo sunglasses fell out mid race. Luckily I was able to jam it back into place after a few minutes of messing with it. Unfortunately, I was not able to clean them off, so they had this nasty film for the remainder of the race. Not sure how any of this affected my time. Since I tend to run faster the colder it is, I'm hoping to have finished around the 1hr 39min mark.
It was so cold that I forgot to take photos. I didn't have my photographer (he was running too) and my cheering squad was curled up in his bed at home. I snapped one at the start and one at the finish. None of the chocolate fondue (which was tasty, but probably not a good thing to eat post race) or hot chocolate.
Miles logged: 9.3
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