Too Cold To Hold: It's My Party...And I'll Run If I Want To!

My birthday falls on January 19 and that is smack in the middle of what psychologists term “the most depressing week of the year.” It is when winter is usually looking its most bleak, the Christmas bills are due, and folks are starting to realize that 1) they are failing miserably at their New Year’s Resolutions or 2) their New Year’s Resolutions are going well but they really aren’t that much fun. The day usually ends up being pretty anti-climatic and low key and I usually end up feeling kinda blue…like I should have made more of it. Well not this year! I noticed that one of my favorite races, Too Cold To Hold 15K, was on January 22—close enough to my actual birthday to declare it “My Birthday Race” and invite all of my Frunners. Before I knew it, lots of people had signed up to run, I had a new red “birthday” running skirt, and Mary had secured a whole box of red velvet birthday cupcakes! A party was born!!

The weather that day was humid and not especially cold, but still decent enough to hope for a good race time. I had recovered from my December marathon and had been adding speedwork back into my training so I was ready to see what I can do. My goal for the day was to keep a consistent pace—hoping for an average pace of 9:00 (finish time of 1:23:42)—with nice, negative splits. I was not planning for a personal record (PR), rather a well executed race that would give me some of my “mojo” back after running slower for marathon training.


Frunner Girls

It was easy to find my “party” of Marci, Corina, Michelle, and Stacy along with Fiona and Greg, Mark L, Cairo, Felix, Jeff, EW, Debbie, and Rick…to name a few. It was fun to see so many faces! We found Beth and Teal when we lined up at the start. The race announcer was making all of us laugh—trying to “fire up” the crowd with an over-the-top voice. Mark L made it even funnier by adding his own excited comments in his own fired up voice--hi-lar-ious! In all of the excitement I didn’t start my watch (as I thought I had) and didn’t notice until about a half mile in. I think that this might have worked to my advantage because I wasn’t able to compare my pace to the mile markers. Rather my splits came in about a half mile behind the markers.


Mary and Corina--this smacks of trouble

This race is an “out and back” meaning that we started seeing the race leaders on their return when we were about 3-4 miles in and then after that we could start to look for friendly frunner faces. There was even an added surprise right before the turn around as we spotted Heidi and Brian –they surprised us by coming out to cheer! The unexpected friendly faces really helped us as we began our return trip. I can't wait to repay the favor to them someday, that was so cool of them.

The pace felt great—pushed but never to the point of being highly uncomfortable (the “I might die” point)—and the splits on my watch (still mile splits even though off from the race course) were looking great—nice and negative! I started to feel tired during mile eight, but knew that we were close enough to the end that I could keep on pushing. One more Heidi and Brian spotting helped a lot and we rounded the bend for the home stretch. It was great to see friendly faces right before the finish line and Erik stopped just short of the finish line and yelled “Happy Birthday” as I crossed the line. It was my day and he let me win this one!

In the end I more than met my goal with finish time of 1:22:31 average pace of 8:52 over the 9.3 miles. That is only three minutes behind my PR and good enough for 11th out of 66 in my age group. I was even more thrilled to see the race breakdown on the results page:
1st 5K 27:50
2nd 5K 27:44
3rd 5K 26:55
Perfectly negative splits!! Yay!!!! This was exactly the confidence booster that I needed after feeling so tired and sluggish during the New Year’s Double. I was worried that I had somehow lost my speedy legs, but it looks like they are still there. I am going to keep setting realistic goals for myself for each of my upcoming races.


EW brought the perfect gift! Thanks!

I reluctantly sent Erik off as he had to head out for another loop of the lake for a total nineteen miles of Cowtown Marathon training. After the race Mary arrived with the big box of cupcakes and we had a great time celebrating. Hanging out at a race with cupcakes makes you a pretty popular person and we made plenty of new friends. I even met the famous Ribs—amazing runner and blogger for the Dallas Morning News. We talked for a bit, took some pictures, and Michelle and I made the running blog the next day! How cool is that!?


Frunner Party!

Everyone headed to Fuzzy’s Tacos for post race food and drink and once Erik finished his miles we headed there too. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had a huge table on the patio filled with frunners. I was flattered that everyone would come out to celebrate with me, it really was one of my best birthdays in years. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate and I am already making plans for next year!


Fuzzy's Feast!

(Thanks, as always, to Corina, EW, and Mary for the pictures! This blog would be pretty boring withour your contributions!)