Polar Cap Four Miler

Before the race - warm, no snow or ice - very different

weather this year

The race on Saurday was much warmer than it has ever been in the five years I have been doing this race.  It wasn't bad at all waiting at the start.  Once we started though and were going up the first hill I felt like my legs were encased in cement. Was I even moving forward?  I couldn't imagine what my time would be.  But when I got to Mile 1 the volunteer shouted out 9:15 and I realized I was doing fine.  My second mile was my fastest at 8:57. The third and fourth mile have a long hill before you hit a downhill and then home stretch.  Those two miles were 9:39 and then 9:00 flat.  The last part is long, it takes awhile to go through the finish.  One guy who kept swapping places with me did pass me before the finish.  My final time was 36:31 which was about 15 seconds faster than last year!  My pace was 9:08.  I was 132/234 not quite in the top half.  I was 2 out of 5 in my age group, my fifth year in a row of getting an age group prize! Plus it was fun to go to the race with a friend and Christa was there.

But the prize.....the same prize the race winners got was this hideous lovely scraper! After I came home I checked back to see what the prizes have been over the years.  The first year I won a nice plaque, engraved as an age group prize.  The second year was an engraved medal.  The third year was a snowflake pin.  Last year was a bowl.  This year.......the scraper.   Let's go in the other directions guys and start improving the awards!

I shouldn't have shared this.....you'll all 

be flocking to this race in the future and 

no more AG awards for me!

So Karen, yes to the AG Prize, no to the hardware.

Karen said...

have a great race! Hope you come home with some AG winning hardware :)

After the race Sara and I did a little shopping.  First to Target which we have none of in Vermont. I didn't buy anything terribly exciting but got a few things I needed.  Then a stop at Eddie Bauer where I only got one shirt.  

The shirt - I like the Polar Bear much 

better on the shirt than the scraper.

Today's 12 mile run was much better than last week's 11 mile run because I made myself eat something.  It was colder than I would have liked it to be.  It's not too bad when you are out there but I am chilled forever when I get home.

We took a couple of pictures. One is taken on the road that my header picture was taken on. I wanted to show you the difference in the snow.  There is snow in this year's picture but there is not much at all.  Yesterday when I drove to New York once I left the town I teach in there wasn't even a ground covering anywhere!  The other picture just has our lovely mountain in the background.