Dashing through the snow

It's that time again, for the best 5k in town.  Every year, I swear the weather is going to be better for the Dreidel Dash and every year the weather seems to outdo itself with hilarity.   This year, the course looked about like this without the 30mph winds.  Thank goodness because it was 20 degrees cooler than when that picture was taken.

This is also the first year I'd captained a team for the dash.  There's a pot of chili on the line every year to see which community partner can have the biggest team.  My team of four people didn't come close to the school or the congregations, but we had a blast.  And what we lacked in size, we made up for in cool hats.

 Lindsay - inside and warm before the race

 Oh look, it's the St Paul Runners, and one of them has my other cool hat too!

 There I am, with the Team:Work cool hat on.

 See, I mean really, are those visors not completely hilarious?  Here we are at the starting line.

I'm trying to figure out what I did to myself during this race.  I finished at 33:07 which is not, you know, breaking the bank on time.  But I swear I started out at about a 12:00 or 12:30 mile and kept it up for a mile or maybe a bit longer.  Then my next fastest teammate was all, "you go on Liz, save yourself" and I started moving a little faster.  Only, if I'm right about my opening pace, I started moving a lot faster, like sub 10:00-mile faster.  No wonder I almost puked.

Right there at the finish line were two more people who came out to support Team:Work.  They supported me with hot cider right at the finish.  Sadly the Russians didn't bring the Vodka.  I got to watch my boss roll in a sub-12:00 mile performance.  I've run with her before and she hauls it in at the end.

Our third teammate came in right after 40 minutes to complete her first 5k in life.  She started running in August and she's, um, older than me.  So I say, right on.

Our fourth teammate wanted to power-walk the race because, believe it or not, she walks faster than she runs.  I believe it, I still remember the last time I got passed by a power-walker.  She set her own PR for the 5k distance walking or running.

I'm already talking to Team:Work about our next race.  I've offered the 'freeze your butt off' training program.  That means we just run outside after work.  I'm hoping they'll opt for running at the Metrodome which apparently happens some nights in the winter.  Possible next races include Securian Winter Run, formerly known as the Securian Frozen Half, or the "freeze your ass off half marathon" as I called it.  Also possible is the Oy Vey 5k, which doesn't have a link up yet, I hope they do it again.