Have you ever raced in a snowstorm? Well, the beginning of a snowstorm actually, before the roads are a hot mess but when pretty white flakes are flying all around?
kinvaras for the win
It’s so fun! I’ve run in snow a ton, but never really raced in it before yesterday. NYC was due for a snowstorm on Saturday, but it wasn’t supposed to get real until late morning/early afternoon. The race will be fine, I kept telling myself. Since it didn’t start until 8:30, I woke up at the luxurious hour of 6:15 and had some toast with peanut butter, a banana and some coffee. I stretched and did some core work while watching the news, and my favorite weather guys on WNBC were predicting the snow to start soon. Hmmm, ok. This should be interesting.
I got dressed, pinned my bib on and left my apartment around 8:00 – just enough time to run to the corrals before they close and not spend too much time standing around freezing. Met up with Betsy, Jenny and another running friend Birgit and we all talked about how crazy we were as it started to snow. I didn’t really have a plan for this race other than to push it a little bit and see what happened.
Miles 1-3: 7:58, 7:25, 7:46
The first mile was super crowded and a bit slow, but after that I settled in and there was a nice downhill for much of mile 2. I was running right near Mary Wittenberg, and she was talking with a colleague about random things that I may or may not have been eavesdropping on. She is a bit faster than I, but I thought it might be cool to see how long I could stick with her. I wanted to comment about how we should be used to this weather since we’re both from Buffalo, but by around mile 3 she was gone (and ended up finishing in around 1:09, kind of slow for her as I think she’s recovering from an injury).
Miles 4-7: 7:33, 7:44, 7:28, 7:39
The snow was still coming down but thankfully, the roads weren’t too slippery yet so I pushed onward and didn’t look at my Garmin until each mile marker came around. I tried to run more on feel and think it worked pretty well. The splits aren’t very even because of the rolling, gnarly hills in Central Park, but my effort was pretty consistent throughout the race.
Miles 8-9.3: 7:49, 7:34, 7:07
Mile 8 was up Cat Hill, which nearly killed me. But after that I told myself that there were no more hills left and to haul ass. By this time, there was a layer of snow on top of my eyebrows and the grass in Central Park was covered. There were a few runners around me in the last mile or so I kept trying to pass, and think I got a few before the finish line. Even though I was tired, I still had a bit of a kick at the end and was pretty happy about that since it has been a challenge for me in the past.
tangent running fail
This is about a 2 minute 15K PR from last year’s race, so I’ll take it. It was so fun to see Central Park turn into a winter wonderland over the course of 9.3 semi-quick miles. Almost as soon as I finished I was freezing, so I walked with Birgit back to East Drive, looked for Betsy and started to run home while dreaming of a hot shower and hotter coffee.
I spent most of the rest of the day trying to warm up while watching the snow fall from inside, minus a quick trip around the ‘hood. Because there’s nothing better than a little snow in NYC at Christmastime, am I right?
tree stands are my favorite <3
Weirdest or most inclement weather conditions you’ve raced in?