Ran another holiday race this morning - Thanksgiving morning. The Drumstick Dash is a 10k race consisting of 2 counter-clockwise laps around Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. Twin Cities weather this time of year can still deliver nice running conditions like my last race 3 weeks ago. However, today was a stark reminder that winter is unfortunately upon us. Several recent ice storms coupled with a few inches of new snow the day before the race, made running conditions very poor for this one. Add bitter cold temperatures (10 above), sub zero wind chills and we had the makings for a real fun race!
The race route is on the parkway surrounding the lake which provided a mixed bag of road conditions (glare ice, packed snow, or glare ice covered with packed snow). Any way you cut it, racing conditions were so treacherous that real road racing could only tackled by those crazy enough to risk injury. I decided I would use this race as a nice comfortable 7:20/mile tempo run - about 1 minute/mile slower than my 10k race pace a few months back.
As the race began, the wind was not as biting as I thought it would be, although I began the race with my face covered. On the south end of the parkway are two hills which aren't difficult to climb, but they are difficult to run down the back side. I've run this course several times before in other races and the 2 downhill sections are difficult even when footing is good. As gravity takes over most people are forced to run on their heels (okay, maybe just old men like me) to control speed and prevent one from accelerating faster than your legs can keep up. Now throw in the packed snow and ice conditions and we have a real hazard to negotiate through. Fortunately I made it safely through this section both laps, but there were many steps along the route where I felt my plant foot give way momentarily, forcing me to react quickly to catch my balance.
I removed my face covering 2 miles into the race after my body had fully warmed from the exercise. The trees and nearby homes seemed to shelter us from the wind on the west and south ends of the lake, but as we reached the northeast corner turning west, we were painfully reminded of what sub-zero windchill feels like. My lips were so numb they felt 3 sizes larger than normal. After successfully negotiating the dangerous downhill section for the second time, there were only 2 miles remaining in the race. I've been dealing with a minor groin injury on my right side the past few months. However this race really aggravated the issue. I'm sure my sudden body corrections to regain balance every time my footing gave way didn't help. It was impossible to run relaxed without slowing to a crawl.
I considered picking up the pace on my 2nd lap but with my right groin bothering me I decided to wait and make a push in the final mile. I'm not used to having this much energy left at the end of a race, but with the slower than normal pace I could feel myself wanting to open it up near the end. I did push the final mile before finishing with a time of 45:34 - my slowest 10k race time to date and more than 6 minutes slower than my personal best of 39:14 which I ran 4 months ago. I finished 54th among 752 finishers and 3rd of 49 in my age group. Considering my slow time it was obvious that all the runners were negatively impacted by the poor conditions, as my placing would have been significantly lower had I run 45 minutes in good conditions. I just love winter racing and we still have 4 months to look forward to this!
Race results...
http://www.mtecresults.com/race/show/216
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