Race Report: New Year's Day Predict Run

It was a quite a Christmas in my household. I'll spare you the details, but here's the outline:

1. Thursday, Dec. 20: Cancelled flight to Missouri; we end up driving two days instead

2. Saturday, Dec. 22: Dan diagnosed with bronchitis and put on antibiotics.

3. Wednesday, Dec. 26: Will tested and found positive for Influenza A, then put on Tamiflu. Soon after, his sister got sick too. Oh, and so did I, my second nasty one since the California International Marathon. Cough, snot, low appetite, low energy.....

4. Friday, Dec. 28: This was the day we were supposed to drive back to Colorado. We had to delay because Ruth was still feverish. And I wasn't so great myself.

5. Sunday, Dec. 30: We finally pulled into our own driveway back in Colorado. Everyone's on the mend now...just in time for work and school to resume.

I'd really like a Christmas do-over. It was still nice to see my mom and sister and lots of friends and family, but there wasn't a lot of relaxed holiday cheer. I also missed two runs....and we all know what that does for mood and morale, sick or not.

Sometime amid all this, however, I had asked Darren if I could run a 5K on New Year's Day. I am signed up for the 5 by the 5th Virtual Run Series hosted by Laura at See Mommy Run Fast, as well as the related Resolution Run, and wanted to do the latter as part of a real race.

My resolution is to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Boring, aren't I?

 
Instead of a 5K, Darren suggested I do an informal and fun little run in Boulder called the New Year's Day Predict Run. It started at Flatiron Athletic Club, where I had a memorable treadmill run two years ago on the same holiday, and I admit that given the location I felt twinges of that old fear of coming in last. But the run appealed to me. For one thing, Darren and Colleen were both running it. And it's an old-school event co-hosted by the venerable Boulder Road Runners. The idea is 1) you predict the time in which you'll finish the course, 2) you run "naked" (no watch, no GPS) and 3) the winners are those who came closest to their predicted time.

So off to Boulder I went. It's a bright and beautiful day here. The frigid fog of earlier burned off, and by the time we started at 10 a.m. it was chilly but perfect (not like the butt freezer I had early in the morning yesterday from home; that was a frozen hair frozen eyelashes outing). Today's course went right through my old neighborhood, a lucky thing for me since there were no mile markers or volunteers out there to direct us. I shuffled along, avoiding patches of snow and frost and ice-skate-jogging on a few portions where the streets hadn't been plowed after last week's snow dump.

I had no expectations for this run, another reason it was good I didn't do a 5K. This was never going to be a personal record day, and I'd really like to smash my 5K PR the next time I do one. I predicted 37:59 for the 4.5-mile-ish course and came in at 40:06. Despite the inaccuracy of my guess, it wasn't a dreadful time given that I'm still coughing and congested (as well as tired from the road trip), and I was happy that I passed two people and got passed by no one (there were only about 75 people total). The winners of the prediction piece each came within 15 seconds of their actual time, pretty impressive considering the watch-free requirement. The person who crossed the line first? Yep, you guessed it....Colleen!

Afterwards I hung out and chatted with a couple of people (including a nice guy from the Road Runners who invited me to their Saturday group run, which it turns out happens not too far from where I live; I may take him up on it!). I also found out from Darren that he himself had been down eight days with the flu over Christmas and hadn't been able to exercise the whole time--which somehow made me feel like less of a wimp. After collecting a new stocking cap and a gift card to a local restaurant, I took a hot shower in the club's amazing locker room and spent some time in the hot tub.

Not a bad way to ring in the New Year! I hope all the rest of you are having a good day, too, racing well if you're racing--and may none of us be sick again for a while.

Now I'm off to tackle another marathon....the one in which we deal with the disaster areas our kids' rooms became over the break from school.....