Personal Best

Happy New Year!

And what a great way to start the new year than with a new Personal Best! First, let me say that I consumed WAY too much wine last night and got home WAY too late, considering I had a race to run today. But New Year's Eve only comes around once a year, so I dealt with it.

[Last night's parties were great. I had dinner with my friends at NW's place and then we all walked over to another friend's new house for a party. The place was PACKED and I met all kinds of new people, which was cool.]

Right - back to the personal best: So, I dragged my ass (and throbbing head) out of bed at 9AM. I ate some cereal and then crashed on the couch for 90 more minutes until I had to leave for the race. I took some ibuprophen before I left and also had some coffee before the race, which helped.

We got a bit of snow yesterday, so the route we were running was snow-covered, which meant that the footing wasn't going to be great. I got behind my running group right off the start as I had to stop and re-tie my shoe (grrr). I played the rest of the time playing catch up (and never did).

Someone took a slight detour on the route and everyone else followed like lemmings, so it added about 100m onto the 9K route. On the way back, we took the regular route. I ran on my own the whole way and on the way back this woman was pacing off me, which I don't really like. With about 2K to go, she passed me and I paced off her the rest of the way. I picked up the pace and passed her again with about 100m to go. I thought I had her beat until about 20m from the finish when she passed me and crossed the finish line ahead of me. Grrr. I'm not a competitive person by nature, but I got really pissed when she passed me at the finish.

I stopped my watch at 52:12, which was a new PB for me for that race. I was especially happy about my time considering the poor footing and the fact that we ran an extra 100m because of the detour on the way out.

After the run, a bunch of us dove into Lake Ontario for our traditional New Year's Day Polar Bear Dip. OK, it was only the second annual Dip for me, but it's a new tradition my friend KH started a few years ago. Yes, it WAS as cold as you'd expect it to be. The air temperature was at the freezing mark and I have no clue how cold the water was. The sand on the beach was frozen, so that was probably the most uncomfortable part - after the dip, standing there in wet socks on frozen sand. I had a nice big towel waiting for me and then headed inside to get dry and warm.

The post-run meal was chili, salad, buns, sweets and Guinness!

When I got home I looked up my times from previous years to confirm that today's time was indeed a personal best. Here are my previous times:

2003: 54:00
2004: 52:28
2005: 55:37 (fell 5 minutes into the race and nursed a sore knee the rest of the way)
2006: 52:12 (including a 100m extension to the route)

What a great way to start off the year!