Adventures in Snowshoeing

Today we got even more snow, but around lunch time the sun came out and the "feels like" temperature was above zero (ok, it was zero).  Since the roads were way too snowy, I decided to try out my new snowshoes that I got for Christmas.

My XC skiing pants and Running Room jacket that I bought for the Polar Dash also came in handy today.  So…snowshoeing is hard!  The snow was really deep and there were huge drifts on the golf course.  But it was very peaceful and pretty out there today!

I wore my Garmin and HR monitor just out of curiosity, and I did about one mile in 30 minutes!  My HR was in zone 2 most of the time, so it wasn't quite giving me a great workout and when I was finished all I wanted to do was go for a run.  It was a little different and frustrating moving so slowly on the snowshoes, but sort of fun at the same time!  This winter has not been a good one for running in Minnesota, so we do what we can.  I'm really looking forward to warmer temps, whenever they decide to show up.  

I'm (sort of) training for my next race, the Get Lucky half marathon on March 15.  I have been trying to follow a higher-mileage plan, but I have not been getting my long runs in at all due to this crappy weather.  I have been hitting the treadmill a lot and doing some speed work from my latest metabolic test, so hopefully I will be ready to set a PR in March!  For the rest of the year, my race schedule looks like this:

March 15 - Get Lucky half marathon

April 19 - Lone Star half marathon in Luckenbach, TX (I just registered for this today!)

June 1 - Minneapolis half marathon

October 5 - Twin Cities Marathon (!)

October 25 - Monster Dash half marathon

I'm sure I will sprinkle some 5k races in there too, and I would really like to run a 10k since I have not raced that distance yet and I love that distance!  But the highlight of the year will hopefully be Twin Cities, more on that decision in an upcoming post...

Polar Dash Half Marathon Race Recap

The first day of 2014 was freezing here in Minnesota!  The windchill was 20 below zero.  Only crazy people would run a 14 mile race outside on a day like that:

Exhibit A "crazy people"

By the the time the race started, we already had frozen toes and fingers.  They announced right at the start that they would be handing out medals to everyone who crossed the finish line, without verifying if you completed the whole course.  There was a 10k, which was a 3-mile out and back route, and then the 14 mile, which followed the 10k route and then went out another 4 miles and back.  So when we started out, we thought maybe we could just do the 10k and call it good, it was really way too cold to run 14 miles.  

Thank goodness for my running friends Tasha and Anna, at the second turnaround, we all just kept going and therefore committed to running the whole 14 miles.  After we were done, we all said that we were waiting for one of the other girls to say something about quitting after 10k, but none of us did!  I am proud of us just for doing this race!  After our porta-potty break at around mile 7, Tasha ran ahead because she was freezing and is a much faster runner.  I don't blame her for just wanting to finish as quickly as possible!  Anna and I continued on at a slow-ish pace and our half marathon split was 2:43:34 (not terrible considering the potty break).  Our 14 mile time was 2:53:56!  I guess you could call that a 14 mile PR.  Of course, my phone died halfway through (it tends to do that in the cold), and I forgot my Garmin!  So I don't have any splits or anything.  The goal of this race was just to finish, and I am really happy that it is done.

I have to mention that collectively I think we spent over $1,000 outfitting for this race among the three of us.  We were still freezing.  But it was worth it just to say that we ran 14 miles on the first day of 2014!

When I got home I added my bib and medal to the new medal holder that Anna made me for Christmas:

I hope to add many more medals to that display in 2014!  Happy New Year!