Monday, April 14, 2014

Dashin' through the wind!

It is that time of year. The time when Colorado goes slightly bipolar and can't quite decide if it wants to be sunny or snowy. It's usually VERY sunny, or VERY snowy, nothing really in between. But if it decides to be partly sunny (or partly cloudy) it has to be (HAS to be) windy. Yep, wind is a thing of the spring around here.

The Dash and Dine series was a snowy one last year. It was like the weather knew it was Tuesday and decided to dump ridiculous amounts of snow. Literally all the snow we didn't have last winter fell on the 6 Tuesdays that Dash and Dine was scheduled to happen. That made it easy for me to win. If you know me at all, you know I hate running in the crazy heat (a feature of the Stroke and Stride series... but more on that later). So, when I realized my runs were supposed to be done in 30 degree weather, I was one of the few to show up on race day (and that speedy lil 12 year old that I never got to beat). I placed Top 5 in my age group in every race and finished 5th Overall in the series... Let me tell you, THAT WAS AMAZING for a slow-poke like me. Especially in Boulder... where every single person seems to be able to run a sub 6:00min/mile 5k.... in a bad day.

Well, 2014 rolls around... and since last tuesday wasn't sunny or snowy, it was... yep, you guessed it, WINDY. VERY. My warm-up jog felt horrible. On the way out, it's uphill and on the way back, you had a head-wind. I was barely able to hold a 9:11 min/mile and I was trying to look good to intimidate the skinny girls in sports bras (no, it wasn't that hot, but the girls were...). Come race start, I was freaking out I was not going to be able to run below 9:00 min/mile. But I figured it out.

The way out was uphill, the first dam had an intense side-wind, the second dam felt ok until the turn around, where I had a headwind. Then back to the first dam with an intense side-wind and back to the start with 1/2 mile of headwind. Not my best. Not my worst either, but yes... my second worst in the past year. Dash and Dine #5 last year was my worst so far. This time around, my crappy 26 minute 5k was good enough for a 3rd place in my Age Group by 25 seconds. I better be able to run 25 seconds faster tomorrow. If not for a 2nd place, just for my peace of mind... anything over 26 minutes is simply unacceptable... And I'd like to say that the course may have been shorter the time I PR'ed last year, but my Garmin says otherwise.

Weather forecast for tomorrow calls for 64 degrees, party cloudy (but I'm a partly sunny kinda gal), and 9mph wind from the SW (which means, a slight head-"breeze" on the way back...).

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