Bear Lake 10 K

  

Sometime last fall I found out that my little sister signed up for a half marathon at Bear Lake in June. Not to be outdone, I considered signing up myself. I knew I would be doing a half in February, and thought maybe June would be a nice motivator to keep moving. Then I thought a little bit longer and realized I didn’t want to do a half marathon at Bear Lake! I like to do half marathons down where there is a lot of oxygen, not up at high altitude. I didn’t want to totally wimp out, so I signed up for the 10K. Great.

So, as we get closer and closer to the day of the race, I am feeling good about my running. I am doing a mix of running and walking, running for 2.5 minutes, then walking for 5. Not bad. I feel good. The thing that has me worried is the weather. I keep checking the forecast, and I don’t like it! What started as potential for a nice run around the lake is now looking like it will be a run in the cold rain (40 degrees and rain – not ideal).

Matt and I drove up on Friday night to sleep over at our trailer at Sweetwater. Mom, Dad and Val went up earlier that day. We are driving up and it is raining, the whole time. We decide to drive over to my starting line and see what the race will be like. I notice deep puddles on the route, not feeling too good about that.

We finally get to the trailer and settle in. When we go to bed I hear the rain pouring all night. I am trying to decide if I just sleep in and forget about the dumb idea of running in the rain in the cold. Why? Why and I doing this? I actually had a dream that I woke up and finished the race and it was all dry and I was happy. Then I woke up and realized I hadn’t done it yet and I was bummed.

So morning finally comes. Val and my Dad set off early, because the half marathon starts before the 10K. I get ready slowly and have Matt drive me to the starting line rather than driving to the finish and taking the bus. It was about equal distance from where we were staying. As we drive the 3 miles to the start line it is raining, then raining harder. I have a pauncho in my little bag, so I am not too worried, but I still don’t know why I am running in the cold rain, and I am worried I am going to be one of like 4 people that show up to run. I sit in the warm car with Matt until the bus shows up. A bus load of people get out, and I start feeling better that I at least won’t be the only dummy running in the cold. So when they get to the starting line I say goodbye to Matt and go stand with them. Little did I know that we would be standing there for another 20 minutes waiting for another bus to show up. It wasn’t too bad, because I was able to talk to other people in the race. Then, FINALLY, it was time to start.

The race was pretty uneventful. It didn’t rain at all on us while we were running. We started by taking up the entire road, and as people moved and thinned out we were over on the left side. The road was open during the race, but it didn’t seem to be too much of a problem. I was having fun. I took my camera and tried to take pictures as I went. I was passed by the first half marathoner at about my mile 3 (so he had gone 10) and I was very impressed. All the halfers that passed me were covered in mud. I didn’t know yet, but they had to run along a dirt road for part of the run. Not so much fun in the rain.

But I finally made it to the end, still feeling really good. I had a time of 1:16 – which for walking 2/3 of the race was not too bad at all. Just under a 12 ½ minute mile. Still pretty good for me. Matt was there waiting at the end of the race (he was awesome and followed me a lot of the race, so I had my own little cheering squad every couple of miles!) We stuck around and waited for my dad and Val to finish. They did awesome. In fact my dad won his age class! Too bad there were not any real prizes for that. But I think it is awesome, especially since he was injured for most of the run. Way to go Dad. I can say that I didn’t get anywhere near to winning my class, but I still had fun.

We spent the rest of the day visiting Minnetonka Cave.  It seemed just like the thing to do on a cold rainy day.