Sunday, February 16, 2014

a pair of 10 milers in lieu of a race this weekend


the month began with the taconic rr freezer 5 miler at fdr park penciled in on my race schedule for this weekend.  when the boston buildup 20k in fairfield was rescheduled from last weekend to this one because of snow, i'd skip the 5 miler and run the 20k instead.  on the way to this weekend, we got another blast of snow - i've lost count of the inches of snow that just keeping coming down this winter and, seemingly, refuse to melt away given the icebox conditions we've been lock in with as well!

the already rescheduled 20k was put over until next sunday - which, as an aside, may lead to the 25k being pushed back a week so the races won't be run back to back.  pushing the 25k back a week will, unfortunately, upset a few apple carts - namely the celebrate life half marathon set for the weekend the 25k would be moved to... well, that decision doesn't need to be made for a while.  who knows, a rogue snowstorm may push back the 20k an unprecedented third time (stranger stuff has happened)!

in any event, the freezer 5 miler was back on for me.  then came more snow on saturday afternoon. i had slogged thru a relatively slow and unpleasant 10 miles that morning - mostly 2 mile loops of the side streets in my neighborhood because my main running route was impassable thanks to unplowed snow, which be that point had taken on an ice-like edge.  that afternoon the freezer 5 miler was preemptively shortened to 4 miles because of severe icy condition at the parking lot used for the turnaround on the 5 mile course.

this morning, when i finally got to fdr park, the main park roads looked pretty bad - i could only imagine how bad the condition was at the turnaround parking lot at the other end of the park!  but the real surprise was hearing from the runners walking back to the main parking lot from the concession lodge (staging area) that the race was cancelled!  given the conditions on the main park road, it was right call.  even making it into an unscored fun run would have been dicey.  instead, all the pre-registered runners will get a free entry into another trrc race this year.

ironically - and somewhat late - when i got home i found that my friends had posted the cancellation news on my fb status and twitter feed.  i had left for the race 40 minutes earlier!  instead of changing out of my running clothes, i just headed back out to run the same loops of my neighborhood street that i did the day before.  on the positive side, the second ten miles came in at 1:30 even, a 9 minute pace - versus prior day's 1:35, 9:30 pace!

on the dreadful side - the weather forecast is for yet more snow this tuesday - argh!!  hopefully, that will be winter's last gasp for a while because the rest of the week - and into the weekend - sees a return to 40 degree temperatures!




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