Snowflake Chase 5 Mile

The Snowflake Chase 5 mile race was held on Saturday. I'd been signed up for it for awhile but it was going to be weather dependent if I would actually show up. It's back in my hometown which is a 2+ hour drive away and also in a winter wonderland mountain setting. Somehow the weather worked out and I was able to make the trip. I ran this last year. It was the first time I'd ever run 5 miles outside. Afterwards, I was on cloud nine - it felt like a great accomplishment. It was the first race where I actually pushed myself. It's fairly hilly and last year, it was hard towards the end. I had no intentions of trying to get a PR (my 5 mile PR is on a flat, easy course) but I did want to see how much I improved in a year.

I hadn't run since Tuesday. My hip had been bothering me and still felt a bit off on Friday when I took the dogs for a walk. By Saturday morning, it felt normal again which was such a relief! So happy to not be cranky anymore. I made the drive, arrived super early and waited around to the start.

This is a small event so we all gathered at the bottom of a hill and soon we were off. Uphill for the first half mile or so. I was feeling pretty good but wanted to try and pace myself because I couldn't really remember how bad hills were. Luckily, it's an out and back, so I could try to be a bit conservative on the way out and then try to remember what I'd just run for the way back. That didn't really work out though.


Photo credits to the race photographer - gotta love little events where you can easily save your own photos from their site.

The hill that about killed me last year still was hard this year - it starts a little before mile 4 and definitely felt easy on the way out on the downhill, very hard on the way back. Several guys in front of me were walking it but I passed them and kept running - although it felt like I was crawling. It wasn't long until we were in the last downhill to the finish line. My clock time was 43:00 exactly and the Garmin shows me at 5.05 miles in 42:57. Not a PR, but I was happy with it. Last year's time was 49:40. The funniest thing was last year I actually was 2nd in my age group. This year, next to last in my age group. Guess it really depends who decides to show up!

I used to never wear my Garmin to races. I always felt funny about looking like I was too 'into' it since I'm not that good. Since I've become more and more attached to the Old Garmin, it's been creeping into races and I've gotten over feeling awkward about it. The stats:

Mile 1: 8:38

Mile 2: 8:05

Mile 3: 8:22

Mile 4: 9:03 (hill!)

Mile 5: 8:14

.05 - :36 (forgot to stop it right at the finish).

After the race, I gorged myself on some free deep dish pizza certainly negating any calories burned during the race - but it tasted good. Yum!