FYTO5K Race Report

Like much of blogland, I signed on for The Boring Runner's second annual Freeze Your Thorns Off 5K.  Of course, Adam lives in Arizona and so has little recent experience freezing anything other than ice cubes, but he apparently grew up in the Midwest and remembers what winter is like.  Seeing as no likely victim presented themselves for a photoshop blogjacking, I actually had to run this one.

Luckily, I had good company.  Patrick, Mike, and Wade all were running Saturday morning, as were some other members of our tri club. Unfortunately, I was moving a little slowly that morning and kept the boys waiting in the below freezing (hey, 30ish is still below freezing) temperatures, resulting in their threat to AIS (or actually, FOG--feet on ground) me next time I'm late.  And there will be a next time.

We met at the local university to run the trails, so I was a little surprised when we set off across campus instead.  The guys wanted to run the new section of trail that we helped put in last week, but to get there, we had to brave some ice-covered asphalt first.  It was a little treacherous, but no one fell.  I dropped behind the group pretty quickly, but every once in a while I could catch a glimpse of bright color ahead of me.  After an out and back on the trail, we headed back to the main part of campus.  Since I had to go to the bathroom and was dragging behind anyway, I told the guys I was going to stop at one of the buildings and they shouldn't wait for me, I'd just catch them on the trail.

Back at the parking lot, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I hadn't been left behind.  Patrick, Wade, and Mike were waiting for me, so then we headed into the woods.  Patrick was wearing a camera taking pictures ever 5 seconds, and he made a really cool time lapse slide show of our run.



We're really lucky to have the trails we have locally.  It's a really pretty place to run. 

Photo credit: Mike Ransick

There are some sections that pass right next to ravines.  Very cool, but a couple spots with treacherous footing.

Mike avoids plummetting to the bottom

If you watched the time-lapse video, you may have noticed that we have quite a few wooden bridges to cross.  The freezing temperatures made some of these a little treacherous.  One, in particular, required some creativity to cross.  You can't really tell it from the pictures, but the plank bridge slants up, and it was too slippery to walk up.  Eventually we realized we were going to have to crawl...

Crawl???  Really?...

I didn't even have to feel wimpy for crawling, since the guys in front of me did as well.  A couple of them tried walking to see if they could make it but quickly realized it wasn't going to work.

Not too proud to crawl....

This was my longest run since December's Pere Marquette race, but after the first three were finished I stopped counting down how many miles left and just enjoyed the morning and the company.  Kind of funny, though I met Mike over a year ago when he drove me to my first half marathon and we're in the same tri club, this is the first time we've ever run together.  Hopefully he'll come back for another run. :)

Post-race with Wade and Patrick

Our "5K" actually took us 8 miles to complete.  I blame the navigator...and the 8-mile run on my 50K training plan.  Actually, I enjoyed every minute.  It was a great morning for a run.