Sunday, January 23, 2011

Signs and ignoring them.


  • The following message was posted on the NYS Winter Park Series website: "Due to cold weather, the awards ceremony for the Robert Moses 5k (1/23)will take place after the Jones Beach 5k (1/30)." Although I was not expecting to attend this ceremony, this was a sign.
  • When I got up Sunday morning I turned on the local weather forecast. They said that Long Island's historical average low temperature for January 23 was 26 degrees and that today's high temperature wasn't expected to reach 26 degrees. Another sign.
  • The wind was supposed to be blowing at 15-20 mph leaving a wind chill of about zero.
  • When I got in my car the thermometer read 19. This was much better than when I got home late last night where it read 3. Yes, three. Fahrenheit. Another sign.
  • To get to the race site at Robert Moses State Park, I had to take the bridge to go over Great South Bay. The bay was mostly frozen over. Sign again.
  • I got out of my car and ran a little to warm up (ha!). All I accomplished was losing the feeling in my face since it was frozen.
  • At the end of my warm up, I reset my Garmin and the screen read "Keys Locked." I went back to the car to sit in relative warmth, googled a solution to this issue and fixed it.
  • Since I had a few minutes,I called my wife. She commented "I don't want to seem unsupportive but I have no idea how you can be considering actually running outside today." Sign, sign, sign.
  • I headed over to the starting line fondly thinking about running on a treadmill - a not frozen treadmill. I thought that nothing was worse than a treadmill. Could today set a new standard?
  • I found a spot near the starting line out of the wind (hiding behind a van from a local radio station). Without the wind, the temperature was fine. With the wind, no so much.
  • My goal was to just run the whole thing without a walk break. I realized that the wind would not cooperate with running fast so decided to keep a steady pace.
I ignored every sign that said it was stupid to run today. Mission accomplished with no walk breaks in 33:23. I was supposed to run a mile after the race too per my training plan. Instead of that I ran back to the car and put the heat on high.

Maybe there is a limit to my stupidity after all?

PS: Hail to the Steelers!

8 comments:

Kate Geisen said...

Awesome. :) Way to give the signs (though most certainly not your wife) the middle finger. Though the wind would definitely give me pause. Way to go!

Katie said...

I am WAY not brave enough to be running those races, I would LOVE to run the Jones Beach one next wknd if it's not as cold (and not full), we'll see.

Today I looked up open indoor races, since I want to train for a race, but don't want to run in the cold. I found the Armory NYRR series on Thursday nights, I think I'm gonna do the 2 mile on Feb. 24th! I used to run there for HS/College races, have you ever been there?

Georgia Snail said...

wow, a 5er on the beach...yeah, you've got a set of brass ones....

Jon said...

Badass man! That is some true HTFU right there. You should be PROUD that you stayed in for that one.

Big Daddy Diesel said...

I am impressed, I dont deal with the cold, I train indoors till spring, I just wont go outdoors, the cold takes a beating on my body on top of my training, extra sore if I train outdoors below 32 degrees

Al's CL Reviews said...

Your wife's comment made me laugh.

Congrats on running and ignoring all the signs.

Sue Sitki said...

Way to go! I raced an 8k yesterday and it was FRIGID!!!

At least we didn't bail!!

:)

Annie said...

After my post maybe reading your blog is a sign. Crap, I hope not. Guess we will see Sunday..........
Great job by the way. No way I could imagine running in those temps.