Last weekend, Mike held down the fort so I could have a much-needed ladies' weekend with some great gals, planned around that Madison Marathon, in which we ran the 10k (6.2 miles). We met at an adorable little lake cottage 35 minutes away (the other ladies were coming from Milwaukee and further north) that I found on Airbnb. Saturday was filled with pedicures, picking up our race packets at the capital, yummy food, relaxing, and deciding what we should wear for our race the following morning, as the forecast was looking VERY frigid and windy 🥶 I went to Mass on Saturday evening, and by the time I got out, it had already started to snow.
We set our alarms for 5:30 Sunday morning and were out the door by 6:20 to hopefully make it downtown and park before our race, which was scheduled to start at 7:20. Our phones reported the "feels like" temp: 11⁰F. The snow, though barely covering the ground, was beautiful.
Mike said the kids were "screaming" to go outside. Lol. He sent this pic from home.
we asked someone to take a picture of us in front of the capitol.
There we go!
The return headwinds were NO joke! I couldn't feel my face. I tried pulling up that neck gator, but then I couldn't breathe.
About to cross that finish line... I was trying to stop my MapMyRun :-D
For a few minutes after I finished, I had a hard time moving, my body felt numb, but also muscle-tired. There was Michelob beer and a baked potato bar available for finishing runners, and at 8:30 in the morning, I passed on those, but I did grab an apple cider donut. I had the hardest time chewing it. My face was just frozen.
Frozen stiff, ecstatic to be done!
Not a PR, but not bad for 41 with sciatica and knee pain, with 19mph headwinds! And that last hill leading to the finish was a doozy. I had to stop and walk a couple of times, I just could not make my legs run.
I got more and more stiff throughout, exhibited here nicely by my positive splits.
Our airbnb host was probably the best I've ever had, so accomodating- we asked for an extension so we wouldn't have to pack up so early in the morning before our race, and she extended it even longer than we'd asked for. We were able to stay so Kaethe could see her daughter Mali, who was running the half, finish her race. We could warm up with some coffee before returning to the house to finish packing up. And we snapped a pic of all of us in our race shirts and medals.
We found out later that out of 800-some woman running the 10k, Marissa (on the right) got 12th place overall, 1st in her age group; Hannah (beside me) got 16th place overall, 3rd in her age group; I got 20th overall, 3rd in my age group, and Kaethe got 75th overall and 6th in her age group- go Madison 10k squad! Now we are looking for a possible half marathon to run in the spring (barring any injuries). But hopefully, it will be slightly less windy. I can deal with some snow and cold, and even some rain.
😍
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