Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Winter Race Weather

Every year I intend on running the Frostbite 4, a 4 mile race about 30 minutes from where I live. This race is pretty cool because they have 3 different race course, and choose which one to use the morning of based on the wind direction (they obviously *get* how miserable our weather is). I have a six mile run with 4 at tempo scheduled during the week and thought a 4 mile race would be a great kick off to my 2014 racing schedule.

In looking at the weather forecast, the high for the day is 16, real fee 5, with a low of 3. Which means, the windchill will probably be well under zero at the race start. The explanation of weather for the day, according to accuweather is: Cold with a thick cloud cover.

Hmm...

How cold do you race in? I'm on the fence about doing this. On one had, I know I'll push harder in a race than I will on a treadmill training run, and it'll be nice to get a guideline of where my fitness is right now. But on the other hand it seems silly to drive 60ish miles round trip for a ~36 minute race that might be miserable and may be too cold to push hard enough to even get an idea of my fitness level.

Do I need to suck it up? Would you race? Will you come with me so I can have a race buddy? K thanks.

Sincerely,

Freezing up north

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I had a similar race in November COLD (Sub 20 with a colder wind chill), COLD ocean water spraying and WIND(35mph wind gusts threw me into a fence!). I made it 5 miles out of 13.1 and called it a day! If you think it will be fun, go for it. If you think you'll curse your existence, then stay home. I really wanted to TRY for that half marathon (I was pregnant and knew it would be my last half attempt for a while). I didn't get warm for HOURS!!! So, run if you want to test your grit, but there's no shame in not doing it!!! (End rambling)