Because I'm stupid, I signed up for the Channukah Half. "Oh look, there's an Oy Vey 10k and a Gelt 5k. This is the festival of lights race series! And put on by the beloved NYC Runs." I'm not Jewish, but I have a bacon-cheeseburger Jew as a brother-in-law (and don't tell him there's no such thing as a bacon-cheeseburger Jew), so I figured I'd do my part.
"Don't eat gelt. It sucks," he told me.
Okay, Brian. I'll just run the half instead.
As the days approached, I noticed how horrifying the weather reports were. Well, weather.com isn't always right, right?
Unfortunately, it was worse than you could have even imagined.
Cold. In the 20s, but feels colder. Windy. Wind gusts up to 50 mph. As the race was run along the water, spray from the water would come up and cover the entire race course, which would mean you'd be soaked. And then a gust of wind would come. It sucked. It was a double out and back, which meant it sucked worse in one direction (coming back). There were times I was running as fast as I could, and a glance at my Garmin would show me 10:30 pace. And then my Garmin showed some 6:50s. Ouch.
Tears down my face. I couldn't feel my hands. My feet. OMG I can't even move. This sucks so bad.
Then I finished. A volunteer frozenly handed me a heat sheet and Wayne put my down coat on over that. "C'mon, let's get you out of here."
I grabbed a salt bagel w frozen cream cheese and hot chocolate (Gotta love NYC Runs!) and stumbled to the car. The heat felt so good. I cried when I had to get out. Why? Why be someplace cold and miserable? This race sucked, I'm glad I did it, and I hope I'll never do a race that cold again.
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