Let me see if I understand the Star Tribune's write-up of yesterday's running of Minnesota's most expensive 10km, the Get in Gear. (Actually, their official tagline is "Minnesota's Annual Rite of Spring," but they seem to have taken the view that people will happily pay $5/mile for a 10k race.)
The Strib reports that "The slow early pace was dictated by the weather. Though many trees were in their best spring bloom, the temperature at race time was 40 degrees and winds blew at 7 miles per hour from the northwest." To be fair, they do rely on the 2nd place getters opinion to substantiate their summary. But if you skim the results down the field they actually look a little quicker than last year's running.
40 degrees is about 5-8 degrees on the chilly side of ideal, but a slight headwind in the first half, followed by a tailwind on the way home seems pretty good conditions. To be fair, I wasn't racing but I was jogging around the course in the opposite direction and it seemed pretty decent conditions for knocking out a reasonable time. Not perfect, but nothing too bad.
Unlike today. Knocked out my second [goal] marathon pace run in a week at the Wells Fargo Half Marathon. Now all I have to do is reduce the recovery between half-marathons from 165 hours to 0! The results are annotated "Snow (!), lots of wind" and that describes what we got. The race heads southwest, and the wind was out of the northwest, so heading west it was a little tough, but the last couple of miles were aided by a nice tail wind. To get in my 15 miles at pace I jogged through the chute, round the side and hauled myself back to the 11 mile mark at the same speed.
The snow was starting almost exactly as I finished the half marathon and I briefly contemplated stopping there. Glad I didn't as the extra 2 miles give me the confidence of knowing that I've gone beyond halfway at goal pace. Having done it in 34° with snow showers won't be much help if Grandma's turns on a hot day!
What is the 7 week extended forecast for Two Harbors?
Posted by robe0419 at May 1, 2005 6:01 PM