Too Cold to Hold 5 Miler (part 1)

So on Sunday I ran the Too Cold to Hold 5 mile race.  They also had a 5k and 10 mile, but I stuck with the 5 miler as I had never run that distance in a race before – guaranteed PR, haha!  I wanted to run fast and race it as it was a relatively short distance and for the past several months all my races have been between 10 and 26.2 miles.  It felt good to go fast, even though I wasn’t in my best speed shape.

Too Cold to Hold, Too Blurry to See

I didn’t know how fast I could go since I hadn’t done any speedwork in months, but I had one goal – to run under 40 minutes.  I figured that was plenty doable, and I figured right.  I ended up going 37:25, around a 7:25 per mile pace I think.  It was good enough for a top 40 overall finish and placing 5th in my division.

The weather was good – though warmer than I expected.  And there was not the usual blustery winds coming off White Rock Lake.  There was a nasty hill about a mile into it, but I’m glad it was there and not at the finish.  Only major problem was the big cluster of people at the start.  Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of corrals, but this race didn’t have ’em.  All three races had the same start time, so the first mile definitely included a lot of bobbing and weaving around walkers and people going slower.  Always frustrating, but I didn’t get their early enough to forge my way to the front of the start crowd.  So part of that’s on me.  My bad dawg.

Anyway, we had a group of friends and Thursday Night Social Runners out there.  Several of us either PR’d, won age group awards, or had a distance record.

We should’ve ordered brighter shirts for TNSR.

Afterwards the real party started (as opposed to the fake party).  They had lots of free food and drinks (incl. beervecas).  But as always, our group remained serious and committed to professionalism, as seen in this photo.

I decided I needed the duck-lipped-hand-on-hip-one-bent-legged pose that every female seems to have on facebook.

We moved the morning to brunch, where things got super fun.  But I won’t bore you with pics of scalloped risotto and drasians (drunk Asians).  Some things are better experienced than witnessed in social media pics.

Anyhoodle, as soon as they send out the race photos, I’ll try to share a few if I look good (aka duck lips).  Hence, that’s why this post is only part 1.

Peace out Internet!