Nope!
There were a lot of us in the clinic today, so my co-coach and I agreed that she would take the front of the pack, and I would take the back of the pack. I carried the written instructions for the route with me (I was not confident I could find my way without directions). Off we went!
Running single file through the deep snow was tough. Luckily, I wore some extra thick socks, and they kept my feet warm and dry for the first 5km.
The really unfortunate thing was that for one long, uphill road, the snow plows had been through to clear the road. Which meant they cleared all the snow from the road straight onto the sidewalk. Thus, between about the 2-5km markers it saw us running uphill in about 15cm of snow. And because I wound up in the middle pack, I took my walk breaks going back to check-in with the last group, then at the start of the running I would go a bit faster until I caught up to the middle group.
Fortunately, at around 4k the back group decided to head back to finish with 6k.
Unfortunately, this left me over 1km behind the front group (who I could see far ahead on the long, straight road).
But hey, I could easily catch up! Once I'd determined that the 6kers would stick together, I took off, hoping to do a quick sprint to catch up to the front group. But the faster I ran, the more I slipped in the snow. So really, I wasn't making any gains at all!
Snow!
Over 1km later and I was barely making any gain on the group in front. Fortunately, they took their walk break (I didn't) and that's when I really started to close the gap. But boy, was I struggling! The lights were in my favour when we hit a busy intersection, as I caught up enough that they saw me. So despite being on opposite sides of the street, they waited the lights through so I could rejoin them. This was between the 6-7k mark, and I was exhausted. It took me over 2km of hard running to catch up!
This also meant we were only halfway through the run.
It was a long, tough slog right up until the 9k mark. At the 9k mark, a beacon of light in the form of the city worker clearing the sidewalks made all of us smile and cheer. The rest of the way we got to run on actual ground as opposed to 10-15cm of snow, and the difference was wonderful! Plus, we were on our way back down the hill towards the river for the final stretch.
And you know the best part? Besides finishing, of course. And besides the post-run shower... The best part was that my knee was just fine! It hasn't bothered me at all since returning from SE Asia. Maybe the thought of having to get an MRI scared it back on the straight and narrow pathway.
Total distance: 12.95km (I ran a bit farther than others due to going back and forth between groups)
Total time: 1.42.20
Average pace: 7.56 min/km*
Average heart rate: 170 bpm (max: 190bpm - probably when I was going up the hill).
*To give you an example of how the snow affected us: km 2-9 the average pace was around 8.15min/km, but km 10-13 the average pace was 7.15min/km...about 1 min faster on average, even though we were at the end of the run!
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