Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
The subject line is a quote from a I guy I paced in a 100 mile run. And it looks like this Saturday I'll have an opportunity to put it into practice. Today (Thursday) it started raining pretty hard here, with more scheduled for tomorrow, turning to showers on Saturday. What's unusual for us here in Nor Cal is that it's also scheduled to get down below freezing Saturday morning. So for the first time in like 30 years, we're looking at snow in the Bay Area
. The problem is...I'm running a 50k trail run that day
.
The course is pretty challenging, with 4,500 feet of climb over 30 miles, in mud, in the rain, in 32 degrees. Yeah, I'm thinking this is going to be a good one!!
I'll try to get some pics up once it's done!
Mike
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Comments
It's all about how you dress. I actually love running in the snow vs. the cold rain. A fresh snow can give a nice cushion for your legs if the footing is not too bad.
Mike,
Sound like it will be a good race report.
Gordon
I look forward to reading the report.
"There's no such things as bad weather, just bad clothing."
I did my first run in and on snow yesterday in a few years. I prefer the snow to the drizzle we usually get, as it doesn;t seem to seep in thru my clothes as much. But I went about 30 sec/miles slower as I wore my big ol' trail running shoes from Xterra racing days, instead of the sleek quick Newton's I'm used to.
Mike, another bar for your hard-ass merit badge.
I'll write up a proper race report, but the Readers Digest version:
- The threatened snow never happened. On the news, while driving to the race, they mentioned that at higher elevations there was a dusting, but that it melted just about on impact.
- Instead, the weather was pretty much as good as could be expected. It was pretty much sunny the whole day, started in the mid 30's and ended in the mid 40's. It did rain a fair bit on Friday, and some on Friday night, so there was a LOT of mud, streams, bogs. Pics of the lower half of my legs will be in my real report
- It's always hard to predict a time for a course/conditions that you've never run before. So I picked 6 hours out of a hat (I often train around 5mph, so 6 sounded about right for 30.5). But at the last aid station I had about 6 miles left and I was at 4:30, so I decided to push-push and try for 5:30.
- I missed by 3 min - 5:33, and was happy with that. Those last 6 miles include some of the most technical trails of the course: 6" wide single track, 12" wide single track where the middle 8" is deep mud, etc.) I almost fell off a cliff in the 6" section (that would have been bad), and a lady behind me face planted and then chose to just walk much of it.
- Due to the weather they re-routed a small section of the course, opting for fireroads rather than the steepest climbs, so we ended up somewhere less than the planned 5000ft of climbing...but it didn't feel like it
My legs are toast, but I'm enjoying the post-race eat-anything-I-damn-well-please recovery period!!!
Thanks for the encouragement, I'm really glad I ran today!
Oh, and let me correct a misconception - "snow" in the Bay Area is generally nothing like you know of!! If it had been snowing, I'm pretty sure I would have been running through a mud flavored Slurpee, not anything pretty or pleasant!!
Mike