Chilly!

Today I ran in the "Chilly Half" half marathon out in Burlington. March 1st is not a warm time of year, and this year's race could have been described as fully chilly... It was -9C with a modest headwind added into the mix! How to characterise this? Well look at the photo on the right. This guy crossed the finish line a few minutes after me and he had icicles growing from his running hat!

I drove down by myself but ran into a surprising number of friends before, during and after the race. I had planned to run a pretty steady pace of somewhere between 4:15-30/K. In the end it was actually 4:38/K which was pretty close. I also managed to hold a steady pace most of the way. By chance I started right beside a friend with the same pace goal, Cindy made it stick and finished in 1:32. My final time was 1:37:40, which was good enough for 183 out of 2259 overall and 32 out of 206 in my age group of M45-49. Maybe I should have spent less time "high five-ing" kids along the course and barking back at excited dogs? Nah, that's half the fun. The bowl of chilli after the race was fantastic too. :-)

So how did I prepare for the race? One day of rest, which was occupied by driving 45 minutes to Burlington and back to pick up my race kit as well as those of half a dozen friends, and an evening circling around the Pearson International's Terminal 1 endlessly (defined here as 90 minutes) waiting for my parents to emerge from the baggage area after their trip to Mexico... Edit: I also donated platelets for a cancer patient on Friday. That's got to easily account for 3 minutes of my time!

Adrian coaxed me back out of bed with an offer of a roast chicken dinner with friends, but now it's time to crawl back in.

Listening to: Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from CBC Concerts On Demand: Beethoven Symphonies 2 and 3. Free mp3's at the link...