Saturday I ran the Polar Bear 10k, because I acted impulsively four weeks earlier. I had been out for a walk one evening, taking pictures for a small project and wandering my side of town, when I saw a sign at my favorite running store and went in to investigate. The entry fee was $15 and all adults got a long-sleeve tech tee. You can't buy the shirt for that, so I signed the form and walked out with the realization that I needed to be able to run 6.2 miles the weekend after I returned to Oregon from the holidays. Some training runs ensued.
The week of the run was a series of random weather. When I left work Tuesday for a six-mile tune-up near the Old Mill, it was in the forties; comfortable running weather for me, even in shorts. Twenty-four hours later it was nearly sixty degrees, and the mercury dropped to about thirty by the time I left work Thursday. Friday evening, as I walked through downtown with relatives from California, they marveled at the thick, puffy flakes of snow drifting downward around us. I had no idea what it would be like for my run.
It was 22 degrees as I drove to Redmond Saturday morning. Invisible icy patches randomly spotted the blacktop trail of the running course, and I wondered how well I could run while cradling a shattered ulna. As (ahem) luck would have it, the race started ten or fifteen minutes late, by which time it warmed up to 25, and the sun had converted most of the black ice to wet blacktop. I got the time I expected, which was probably better than the time I deserved, and the shin splints which had been threatening all week to erupt with crippling agony gave me a pass. Good enough for me.
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