Stupid Thing #1 - the Resolution Run

While most people were sleeping off their hangovers, a few of us decided to do our first "stupid thing" of the new year - run a 5K at -9°, over snow, ice, and occasional boulders of snow..... How does it turn out? Not so bad, actually. Shif and I were joined by our friend Missy, along with 50 or so other post-NYE celebrants, for the Resolution Run 5K on January 1 at the Running Room in Markham. The run was a pretty low-key event - there was no official timing, we ran on the sidewalk, and they hadn't bothered to ensure that the route was snow/ice-free. But, the good news - we all managed to run the entire 5K, despite our various respiratory conditions and illnesses (Missy and I had a flu, and Shif is just generally snarfy and congested at the best of times).

We didn't have to worry about running with any pesky hangovers. We had a pretty mild New Years Eve with Ashifa's family in Markham. We all barely managed to be awake at midnight. We woke up to a bright, sunny, and freaking cold New Years Day. It was about -9°C (16°F).

It's amazing how warm -9° can be, though, when you're running. :-) We went through lengthy decision-making processes before the race on how many layers to wear - Shif is often a 3-layer girl, me usually one or two. By the first kilometre of the race, I think all three of us had each pulled off an accessory or two - I carried my gloves and gaiter most of the way. The route was through a neighbourhood and around the Markville Mall, and large portions of the sidewalks that we ran on weren't cleared of snow, so it was sort of like running on a (slippery) beach in places. The sprint to the finish line was actually completely ice-covered and featured the debris of a parking lot plowing avalanche - snow "boulders" scattered on the sidewalk, and a rusted shopping cart buried within. The route also had a lot of long, gradual climbs. Since we live and run in one of the flattest neighbourhoods in Toronto, we haven't exactly done a lot of hill training.

So, given all this, we weren't exactly expecting stellar times, and we didn't get them, but I think the goal for each of the three of us was just to finish, to try to go the whole way without walking, to not be last, and to set personal benchmarks for the rest of the year. And we managed to do all of those things. Shif and Missy had done a bit more running than I had in the lead-up to the race, especially continuous running. I was still doing run/walk training and hadn't done much beyond alternating 7 minutes run/1 minute walk, so I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to run the whole way, especially when the race started with a long uphill. Ashifa and I had planned to try to run together so she could pull me along, but I told her to leave me behind pretty soon after the start because I was slower. She ended up finishing best of the three of us. But I kept plugging along, at a pretty slow pace. I'd had a cold for a couple of days, which didn't help. -9° air on a sore throat is not so nice.

Somewhere around the middle of the race, I realized that my lungs or my legs weren't going to stop me - so the only thing that would stop me would be my brain, deciding it would like to walk now; I had a very sweet and surprising realization that I could actually run the whole thing. The race also had a 5K walk option and there were a few walkers there. I could hear the lead walker coming up behind me on the last hill, around the 3 km mark, and my ego insisted that I try to hold her off, but it wasn't going to happen. She finally caught me at about 3.5 km. However, I had my moment of glory when we made the final turn onto Highway 7, the last half-kilometre - it was DOWNHILL! - and I zoomed (relatively speaking, when you're talking about passing someone who's walking) past her. The ice and avalanche on the sidewalk in the last stretch precluded what I'm sure would have been an amazing sprint to the finish, but I did manage to coast in nicely. ;-) Shif had finished a couple minutes before me, and she jogged back to run the final bit with me, then the two of us waited to cheer the sickly but studly Missy into the finish. Our flu-ridden friend managed to run the entire race - it was quite impressive.

Two years ago, Ashifa and I both ran our first 5K at the Pride and Remembrance Run. We managed to run that entire 5K, which was a pretty good achievement at the time, but I joked that the times we recorded (around 42 minutes) were probably the slowest possible for a human being to run for an entire 5 kilometres. Well, I was wrong. Hills, cold, snow, and cold and flu season gave us Resolution Run times of 45 (Shif) and 48 (Jen) minutes. But, we have our benchmarks and we look forward to improving over the course of the year. By the time we're running in Santa suits in December, we should have shaved off many minutes.

A good time was had by all, we got some sassy new running jackets, ate some post-race chocolate chip cookies and hummus, and Shif and I both won prizes in a raffle. Ready for Stupid Thing #2!