Paddy's Five Miler Recap! (I failed at taking pictures)

Today, the weather was as feared; freezing cold, and wind gusts of up to 35 mph! Luckily, the race started at 10:30 am;  I love that kind of start time, it's nice not to feel rushed in the morning!

  I had my usual race breakfast of a Ray's NY bagel, coffee and almond butter.  I checked the weather 5 million times to see what the temps were going to be at 1030am.  I finally decided on wearing fleece-lined tights, a long sleeved tech shirt with my Six03 shirt over it.  I packed my warmest gloves, and brought my white wool headband to wear on my head.

My parents nicely met Max and me at the Pease Tradeport at 9:45;  they agreed at the last minute to watch Max so that Neil could do our taxes! It worked out well, Neil got to do our taxes with minimal interruptions, Max got "ya ya" and "pa pa" time ,and I didn't feel as stressed about rushing back after the race, especially since the post-race beer was something I was looking forward to!

  After parking my car, I met my friend Lenny to do a 1/2 mile warm-up-  the warm-up didn't really warm us up at all!!  Just before 1030, we lined up towards the front, and got ready to race!  I had to start my music on my phone before the gun went off, as I had no intentions of taking my mittens off.

When the gun went off,  I realized that we had placed ourselves further back in the crowd than we had expected, there were a lot of people to weave around.  The 1st part of the race was great, the 1st mile is mostly all downhill, and the wind hadn't yet picked up much.  I got to the 1st mile marker at 7:25.  This felt comfortable, but probably because it was the 1st mile.
  The 2nd mile felt great as well,  I was getting into a rhythm, and despite the cold temps, my breathing was ok.  (7:12.)  The 2-3 mile is made up of a slight uphill and turn-around point, it was great being able to see the lead runners run by, and fellow Six03 runners!  The wind had picked up a bit, not horrible at this point, but uncomfortable. (3rd mile at 7:53.)  After the turn around, I felt a lot better, the wind had died down.  After about 3/4 of a mile, the course turns right, it goes up the street where we do hill repeats at lunch.  I saw my friend Karla parked right alongside the hill- she told me in advance she was going to yell at me (in a nice, but aggressive way :) ), she helped, and was there at the perfect time!  The wind by now had picked up so much, that I had to do everything in my power to not get blown over.  Fourth mile (7:25.)
  The last mile was BRUTAL. Not only was it slightly uphill (feels like a giant hill at this point in the race), but the wind was blowing so hard, that it tripped me up! I could hardly move forward at all, and had to focus on just keeping my head down, and trudging forward.  I really was trudging.  Right around the 4.5 mile marker, I had a similar dizziness and blurry vision that I had from the last race.  I'm stating the obvious by saying that I will talk to my doctor about this now.  Luckily, I was able to make it through the finish line in one piece.  Official time per Cool Running was 38:58.
  I got in the tent, had a ton of soup and water- and went to find the beer!!

Forgot to stop my app after crossing the finish line!