Hail...another Tidal Basin 3K

February 18 confirmed that I truly am one of those insane runners who will run in anything. It was time once again for the monthly edition of the Tidal Basin 3K. This one was a little different than usual though. Instead of having to dodge tour buses we had to try to evade the sleet and freezing rain that was falling. It's one thing to run in the cold but its another thing entirely to have to also deal with stinging sleet bouncing off of your face.

There were only 23 competitors for thsi race and even that seemed high given the conditions. I spoke to Charlie Mercer before the race and he told me that conditions at last months race were bad as it was below 20 degrees but that this was certainly worse. I asked him how he was doing and he commented on Ted being there. I told him that Ted has been injured and is not running as fast as usual and he seemed to cheer up. I saw later that he won the race with a time of 10:55, beating Michael Collins by 4 seconds. I'm not certain but I think that may be Charlie's first Tidal Basin win...good for him!

All of the slower folks had the good sense to skip this race except for me. The only person there that I could stay even remotely close to was Tami Graf (who is 72 BTW). I stayed on her heels through about .9 miles but then I had to take a walk break when my heart rate hit 149. I started running again when it dropped to 125BPM, which was probably a bit too low. By that time, Tami was well out of reach and I was merlely running for my dignity and to allow Jay to pack up and get out of the sleet.

I didn't mention crossing the first Tidal Basin bridge. That was absolutely the worst part of the course. The sleet was coming in from across the Tidal Basin so we had no shelter at all. It was coming in nearly vertical and hitting us on our right side as we ran across the bridge. There was no where to hide. I probably ran across the bridge faster than I ever have before as I just wanted to stop being hit by that sleet!

Returning to the race, I took 2 more walk breaks...both times when my heart rate exceeded 150BPM. I should note that I don't stop based on my heart monitor as I actually can't read it when I'm runnning. I simply stop when I feel like I'm overdoing it. It's only after the race that I see that I typically feel that way when my heart rate gets to about 150.

I finished my last walk break at 1.5 miles and pushed myself as hard as I could towards the finish. My dog Riley cheered/barked me on as I passed him in my car as I neared the finish. I pushed myself hard to the finish and actually had a heart rate of 158 as I crossed the finish line in a time of 20:24. While that is obviously slows, that is the first time I have averaged under an 11 minute per mile pace for any distance since mid September of last year so I'm pretty happy about that. I guess we could say I perfom my best when conditions are the worst. Now we just have to test out that theory.