Safe and Sound

I can tell that I am really starting to get serious about my training. Those of you who know me well, know that I do NOT do well in the winter. I am definitely what you might call “cold-blooded.” This morning I ran in the Davenport YMCA’s annual Turkey Trot. I think this is the 4th or 5th time that I have run this 5-mile Thanksgiving Day tradition. Yesterday was a very nice November day; I think the temps were up in the 50-60’s (although it was breezy with winds in the 20-40mph range). But things took a drastic turn for the worse over night. Not only did the temperatures plummet, but the wind was even more fierce than yesterday. At 8am, I think the temperature was around 15-20 degrees and the wind hadn’t died at all from yesterday. That brought the wind chills down to 5-10 below zero!! But, I had paid my $22 and got the shirt (plus I needed a good training run today), so out the door I went (half expecting to be the only fool to actually show up for the event).

I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold while running before. The race starts out with a steep incline up Main Street in Davenport. Most years I actually walk a lot of this hill… But this year I was able to run the whole thing for three reasons:

1. I think I am in slightly better shape this year than in past years.
2. I had to keep running or the wind would have blown me back down the hill and into the Mississippi.
3. I was frozen so deeply that I couldn’t feel anything; not my nose, not my face, not my fingers or toes, but more importantly, I couldn’t feel the burning of the lactic acid in my legs!

Water stops were a little different than ones I’d seen in the past. They had to put salt down on the road by the water stops so that when you dumped your cup, you wouldn’t make the streets all icy. The water was cold though! Anyways, I ran the whole thing, never got blown over (but came VERY close a couple of times), and was able to finish strong, warm, and with the wind at my back.

This was also the first year that this little Turkey Trot was chip-timed (although I’m not sure why… everyone makes it over the starting line within about a minute), but due to a break somewhere in the chain of communication, I never got a chip, so you’ll not see my name or time in the race results… but I did take a witness with me to verify my time. Just ask Royce if you have any doubts about my performance.

It was great to have a good, solid, pain-free run today. Last night I was wondering if I’d even make it to Davenport to have a chance to run. I left Ames at about 3:45pm and made a 30-minute stop in Marshalltown before heading out for the remainder of my roughly three-hour drive. I estimated that I could ALMOST make it to Walcott on my tank of gas, but decided at Iowa City that I didn’t want to risk anything on the busy holiday travel day, so I stopped to fill up. I hadn’t been back on the road for more than 10 miles when traffic just stopped cold. No movement whatsoever. I glanced at the clock in the truck. It was 6:40pm. I called my mom to tell her that I’d hit a slow down and that they’d better just eat without me, ‘cause I’d probably be there a little while. I didn’t have any idea at the time just how right I was!

I knew there must have been quite an accident to bring the traffic to such a screeching halt. Soon the state troopers and county sheriff’s deputies were flashing their lights as they sped by on the shoulder. Then came the ambulances, probably 4-5 of them. Then I glanced in the oncoming lane and noticed that there were no cars coming from the other direction either. About 30-45 minutes later, the ambulances came by headed back toward Iowa City and not long after that we saw the Life Flight helicopter fly overhead.

We sat and we sat. Thank goodness for XM satellite radio, the rest of the lunch I had packed for earlier in the day, and cell phones. Many thanks to Roehr and Cara who talked to me numerous times during my “rest stop” around mile marker 253. So, I ate, made phone calls, and even contemplated taking a nap, but finally after 1 hour and 45 minutes of not moving a single inch, we got rolling again. The newspapers didn’t have great coverage of the crash. I imagine that tomorrow’s news will have more details, but when I finally made it to the crash sight, things did not look pretty. I’m pretty sure that there were some people who were not quite as thankful today…

Initially, I was really glad that I had stopped to get gas in Iowa City because I would have been in a world of hurt if I had run out while sitting on the Interstate. However, I did realize that had I not stopped for gas, I wouldn’t have been in that part of traffic when the accident occurred. Regardless, I made it home about 2 hours later than I had planned, but safe and sound.