Frozen Toes 5k race report

One of Kelley's roommates from college has been wanting to run a 5k for a while now. Every few years she brings it up, we're always game. This year Amy is in a Woman's Club that organized a 5k, so she jumped in and we signed up too. Amy lives in Moyock NC, very close to the Outer Banks and we get together as often as possible.

Finally Jan 24 was here and we went to the coast for the Frozen Toes 5k! Friday night Amy picked up our packets for us, and we got to their house about 9 pm. Naturally we stayed up too late hanging out and catching up.

pre-race in the car

Race morning it was actually almost kind of dry for the drive out there. That is not the time when I needed it to be dry. There was a huge thunderstorm that rolled through Friday night. Once we're at the park and found the starting line it started raining again. literally, it was only during the drive time over there when it wasn't pouring down. So we hung out in the shelter until it was time to start and I found out Neil actually placed a bet on me to win! Wish I had talked him into changing the bet to place instead of win.

Neil and Amy on the left

So we took off, and there was a pretty good crowd. By the first turn, the crowd was pretty thin up front. By the second turn I was hanging in 3rd place. there was a high school kid in the lead, and a 20 something trying to keep up with him. Neil was out putting volunteers at the turns, then he ended up cheering for a bit and I let him know I was confident in 3rd place that I could reign in the other 2 guys.

Well, turns out the kid in the lead is some kind of high school track star and the other guy was a short course triathlete. We all finished within 30 seconds of each other, but they didn't fade and I couldn't pull them in.

Actually I started with a 6:44 mile. Then in the second mile the rain really started pouring down, and the road turned around so the wind was blowing the rain directly into my face. Fun times. Still pulled a 7:14 for that mile, and all is well. But then in the last mile I faded pretty good. The rain and 38* cold made my long sleeve shirt really heavy so the last mile was around 8:12. The garmin measured 3.19 miles in 23:09, good enough for 3rd place overall!

Kelley and Amy finished in 52 minutes. I am so proud of Amy for conquering her first 5k! it's a huge step, and even in all of that cold and rain I think she's hooked now. Kelley also had the car key with her, so by the time they finished I was standing around that shelter shivering. By the time we got in the car my knees were blue. ha! that doesn't usually happen.

We had a blast hanging out with Amy and Neil for the rest of the weekend, and I ate way too much. Neil and I found an all you can eat sushi place for lunch while the girls went for mexican food, then we got pizza for dinner and many beers were consumed. We got them hooked on Netflix and marathoning Raising Hope, so that was a blast.

By sunday morning the sky was blue again and it was a beautiful day to be out there. We hit a local breakfast buffet (my favorite!!) and grabbed a great picture of all of us with our race medals.

Kelley, me, Amy

This whole weekend was a blast! Sure it could have rained less during the race, I could have been 30 seconds faster and taken the win (so Neil would have won his bet - ouch) and maybe I could have shown a bit more restraint with the food. But man we had fun!