Notes
It was a cold 43° and cloudy at the start and I didn't want to shed my fleece jacket but knew I would overheat if I didn't. It took nearly 1.5 miles to finally warm up but I wish I wore gloves since my fingers were the only thing that stayed cold. I had no trouble breathing in the cold air (thanks to the high humidity...I'm learning that it's dry air and not cold air that causes breathing problems). The first mile was downhill, then the next 2 miles were a series of up and down hills through the River Falls neighborhood with a long slow uphill to the finish line. And it was that last mile going uphill where I really started to struggled but not with my breathing but with my quads and glutes which were telling me they had enough. There was only about 60 runners in this race and this was my first race where I had no butterflies and was completely relaxed before and during the race. With so few runners and with the course running through a neighborhood, it felt more like a training run to me which is why I think I was able to stay relaxed. I'm very happy with my 53:30 (unofficial) time, it is 90 secs faster than I had hoped to finish.