Officially a Frozen Penguin

By | March 12, 2017

Frozen Penguin 5K

I finished!

284/298.

Not even on the last page of the results. Good? No. Happy? Damn yes. My only goal going into this was to finish, ideally without dying. Mission accomplished.

More detail:

  • 57/61 among women 30-39
  • 174/184 among all women.

How did I come to do this race in 20 degree temperatures 9 weeks and a day from when I began jogging? About a week before I actually finished a treadmill 5K I got a wild idea to see if there were local runs that might be of interest. I’d thought about WCS’ Run for Wild and/or maybe jogging the annual March of Dimes walk I do, but wasn’t sure whether either was a good goal to work toward. Plus Run for the Wild is too far/too early. Someone pointed me toward NYC Runs and around the same time as I was finishing John Bingham’s No Need for Speed I saw that their next 5K was the Frozen Penguin. I had to do it. Or at least try.

I noodled on it for a bit and the same day as I finished the treadmill 5K was the last day before the run’s price increase so I went for it. As I watched the weather for this week I began to doubt myself. I’d never run outside, and I never ran in weather. To top it off, the week wasn’t looking good workout wise.

  • After last weekend’s 5K I had two decent two mile treadmill workouts.
  • Taking advantage of Wednesday’s insanely nice weather, I jogged outside for the first time. It was.. underwhelming. I realized quickly I didn’t actually like running on pavement. It was too jarring. That.. did not bode well.
  • Thursday was supposed to be two miles but it was awful and I didn’t realize why until today. The first time I ever ran after dinner, aka with a full stomach. We won’t be doing that again. It ended up a mile over two separate stints.
  • Come Friday night I knew today’s weather predictions were right and I knew that if I stood any chance of getting to start line, I had to run in cold. It… wasn’t awful. It was cold but long underwear wasn’t bad. I was too warm on top with that and a sweatshirt so at the end of my jog I detoured to Modells to see what they had as TJ Maxx, my new crack, wasn’t convenient. Bless you Moret, top and jacket. I tried them on to ensure fit, but otherwise violated the “nothing new on race day” rule

So “race” day.

  • Yes. “Race” day. Sure, it is a race, but I wasn’t racing. Like I said, my only goal was to finish.
  • Morning came bright and early, and cold. So I layered up. My running tights are still en route and the ones I have are capris so I opted to go with long underwear as the first layer (love Cuddl Dudds!) with a pair of old Fabletics wind resistant pants over them. I accidentally ended up with a pair of shorts under the long underwear, oops. Dressing while tired!
  • On top: Moret moisture wicking top, Cuddl Dudds top and the jacket I mentioned above. Ear warmer and an amazing pair of mitten flip tops and I was out the door. So long as I was moving, I was OK. Standing and waiting in the cold? Brr. I had some concerns as to whether I’d make the start, never mind the finish.
  • But once we were off and moving, it honestly wasn’t bad. The course is scenic. The hill at .3 mile was… not fun especially with some ice. From there it was flat/downhill until I ran into a wall of wind when we crossed over to the Greenway. We passed runners on the way back and although I knew there was going to be another hill on the way up, it wasn’t as bad as the first. I knew I wasn’t even going to try to do this without stopping so planned to walk the uphills and that mostly worked. There was another walk break when I needed to catch my breath from the frigid air. But I never stopped moving. Win!

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

    • I was almost glad when my phone died from the cold. RunKeeper is a useful tool but trying to keep an eye on it and my feet was making me too anxious. As a result, the 5K doesn’t count toward the March challenge and I don’t have any splits info, but that’s OK. I have my spreadsheet and that tells me what I need.
    • I put my headphones in at the start but never turned the iPod on. I was distracted enough by scenery and the course that I didn’t need it to motivate me. I also think it would have been too much. Of course I never actually took the headphones out until I got home. Crutch much? Ear band held them in well.
    • I’m intrigued by the Alta HR. I don’t need a new Fitbit, but if I stick with this through my birthday it might be a gift to myself. I’m not sure I need to track by heart rate, but data. At least it’s not giving me nightmares like trying to configure the chest strap on an HRM ca. 2010.
    • Super proud of my Run the Year team. We hit a nice mile stone less than a quarter of the way through the year

Run the Year 2017: 500 miles down

  • My next “race”. Between signing up for the Penguin and running it, I got an email from NYU about a Central Park charity race in April. On Thursday I was really glad I hadn’t signed up. Today? I’m considering it. Who am I?

Books To Read:

  • more John Bingham books.
  • Finish Jill Angie, aka Not Your Average Runner. This is pretty easy as they’re on Kindle Unlimited. Her piece on slow runners is amazing and I used her winter attire post to plan for this.
  • Lisa Jackson’s “Your Pace or Mine” as recommended by Liz.

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