Monday, January 11, 2010

Revisiting the Polar Bear






You may recall that Duncan and I were planning to and did run a 5k on New Year's Day that ended with a dive into the freezing waters of Lake Washington. And it was COLD. It also was one of the harder races I've run in the last 12 months.

Still, it is hands down the best race of the year

I was a bit hungover (sorry parents!) from imbibing a bottle of champagne on NYE, but the movement of running felt great. Dunc and I started the race out together, but I knew we wouldn't stick it out for the whole race. Even with my longer distance training, Dunc still is stronger and faster in the short distances. 

I had aspirations of running sub-24, but the night's festivities were not going to allow it. At mile marker 1, I was running about an 8:30 mile and Dunc had about 400 meters on me. I kept the same pace up 'til mile 2 and then BAM: heavy legs, mind games, the WALL. I really wanted to walk, and people started passing me, but I just told myself: "Self, you will not be happy if you walk. AND you ran a half marathon. C'mon!!! This is a measly 3 miles!!! Get to the lake!!! NOW!!!!"

So I pushed through and started picking up the pace a little until finally I rounded the bend to the boat launch. I dove into the water head first. Now last year, the lake was actually much warmer than the air temperature, but this year, the lake was so much colder. After diving in, my breath was totally taken away and I slowly made my way around the turn to finally run out of the water and finish. Whew.

It didn't take long to find a soaking wet Duncan at the finish line, he had ended up coming in about 30 seconds ahead of me and after discussing our race had the same mile 2 wall, but his motivation was: "Betsy will be so disappointed if I walk..." Not true, but whatever keeps you running!!!



 After the dive in, I hadn't yet realized that diving head first in the water may result in the loss of glasses...



 Dunc clearly has also had the breath shocked out of him.



 And here he is totally warm and toasty at the finish.


The official results: 
Elizabeth
Evans
25
F
F2029
Seattle
176
7/96
35/473
25:41
8:18
487
Duncan
Hauenstein
24
M
M2029
Seattle
155
25/79
125/468
25:05
8:06




And the Double Dip Team results:



11.   50:46 explosivo                                 (  25:23)
====================================================
  1    25:05    487 Duncan Hauenstein        Seattle            WA 24  M
  2    25:41    486 Elizabeth Evans          Seattle            WA 25  F

We came in 11th as a team out of 46 teams... not too shabby! I was pleased with the improvement over last year and Duncan is officially hooked. Anyone else want to run into the lake???

6 comments:

  1. Sweet, you and Jody totally need to come to Seattle for New Year's. Deal?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am sooooo proud of you guys! Very, very impressive...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your team name! EXPLOSIVO! No wonder you did so well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can't even begin to imagine how cold that water had to feel. Brrrr...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I was actually surprised by how well we coped with the whole 'being soked' thing afterward. We walked around for a good ten minutes and I didn't feel cold at all. Did you Bets?

    ReplyDelete

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