I have not had to run in snow or too cold of temperatures (I think I ran when it was 29 degrees once) all winter. Last night, I read the forecast for today’s race – “90% chance of snow an hour before start time and lower 30s”. What?? Do I need to raid my closet for my old WI winter running gear? How do I dress for snow again? Moving to Oregon has quickly spoiled me with warmer winter temps and not much snow in the valley where we live. Ashland, just 15 minutes away, is a touch higher in elevation and quite often gets snow when we get rain. Not this winter. It’s been mostly rain everywhere, except for the mountain tops. So now, the beginning of March, I am dressing to run in snow for the first time all winter.
Or not. I snapped out of my panic and remembered the weather forecast seems to change every hour around here. Dress smart, for the lower 30s, but I’m not going to be plodding through feet of snow…
This morning brought sunshine. I grabbed my capris (I’m very anti-pant running lately), my Smartwool short-sleeve, layered over it with a
Patagonia Capilene 2 zip neck, confident I would be dressed perfectly. Wool is my go-to in just such an “emergency” as possible snow or any precipitation:
wool = warm when wet. I pulled on my wool socks, laced up my
Brooks ASRs – which are perfect for a soggy trail run- and off we (my husband, Aaron was running too) went.
Now, here’s a question about race etiquette:
If you are not finishing for a placing in your age group,
do you charge the people ahead of you a foot away from that finish line?
I was playing leap frog with another woman for quite a bit of the race. She would pass me on the ups, I would pass her on the flats and downs. We caught up with each other at the finish, we sped up, and we were about to cross together. A foot away from the line, a girl comes busting between us, elbows out, and crosses the line in front of us. I know, a race is a race. I can’t really decide how I feel about it though. I got beat. Less than a second away from the finish, and I didn’t even see it coming. Would I have done the same thing? I’m not sure.
When it was all said and done, Aaron finished 6th overall and beat his time from last year (and wore shorts today). I’m not even sure what place I got. I don’t really consider myself a racer, I just like to run. I didn’t meet my goal. I wanted to finish in an hour or less. I finished in 1:01. Normally, I’d be pretty upset running six miles in an hour. Not this course.
Now, it’s on to the long run tomorrow with the ladies – 16 miles.
Weather, highs in the 60s and sunny – perfect!