My second race for 2022 came right on the heels of the previous one. This time it was for the NYRR Gridiron 4 mile race. After this one I have a break for a little bit before the next race I’m running.

This turned out to be my first race run in the snow. I got pretty lucky with my running wardrobe, but I’ll get to that in a second. Early in the week, I checked the weather to see what kind of running clothes to pack; there was a 17% chance of precipitation. Based on the forecast temperature of 33F (versus last week’s 18-22F), I was just going to wear the Tracksmith Brighton base layer, quarter-zip mid-layer, and tights. But I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to just bring my entire Tracksmith wardrobe. The night before the race I once again checked the weather. There was now a 50% chance of snow or rain. When I woke up, the forecast was now 90% chance. So I went with the same getup I had last week - the Brighton base layer, quarter-zip mid-layer, jacket, and Bislett pants. The jacket and pants are both wind and water resistant so I figured they’d keep me a lot warmer. The Bisless pants proved to be especially great to have because they have stirrups that keep the pants from moving up and, therefore, keep the legs from getting wet when it’s snowing. It was snowing when I left the house, on the train ride up to Central Park and as I warmed up. Luckily, the snow stopped right before race started and didn’t start up again until I was done.

Sunday, 6 February 2022, was my first race of 2022. I’d been looking forward to the Fred Lebow Half Marathon to both be my first race of 2022 and first half marathon race. Unfortunately, I got really sick with something not-COVID and couldn’t attend. So I was extra excited about getting to this race. Last year’s COVID winter surge and summer Delta wave meant that I didn’t get to any in-person races until the fall when I FINALLY got to do the CUCB Cherry Blossom race. This year it seems, so far, that in-person races are here to stay with various COVID mitigations in place. NYRR is requiring racers to be fully vaccinated and mask wearing until runners leave the corrals. Folks seem to be mostly complying with the latter, although it’s inevitable that some folks slip through the cracks.

From the race I wrote about previously.

Today I ran my first trail run, the Bigfoot Endurance Trail. I will definitely say that Ripit Events did a great job running the race. There were lots of good reminder emails leading up to the race. They had folks managing parking. Everything went smoothly and, more or less, on time.

After nearly 2 years of training, I finally was able to run the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 mile race on 12 Sept. Yeah, last year I ran a virtual race, but that was really no different than a training run. This year we finally had the COVID-19 vaccine and so the race was able to take place in person. It was worth it.

Ever since fall 2019, I’ve been training for the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race, scheduled for 5 April 2020. Unfortunately, like everything else involving more than one person, it’s been scuttled by COVID-19. After all that training, it was disappointing. (I will take a moment to acknowledge that it’s objectively ridiculous to be disappointed by a missed race when people are dying. However, there’s always someone worse off than any other person. eg. I can feel that I’ve had a bad day at work, even if my day wasn’t as bad as someone who found out they had cancer It doesn’t delegitimize their feelings of disappointment as long as they keep it in perspective.) The organizers of the Cherry Blossom Festival race had a solution - a virtual race! Run wherever you can and record your time and it’ll all go on the website. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly a way to use all that training you’ve done. So today I went ahead and did the race since the weather’s actually good today. It was an AWESOME run. It felt great to do it and, given the insane hills in my neighborhood, I finished feeling that I could definitely kick butt in the Cherry Blossom race next year because their course is not very hilly. It also renewed my confidence in being able to do well in the Baltimore 10-miler this summer (if it’s not cancelled), renowned for being hilly. So how did I do? (if you paid attention, it was spoiled at the top…hehe)

As I’ve mentioned a few times, my first running race was the 5k at the 2019 Red Hat Summit. I caught the bug and started thinking about running longer races. Since a lot of races use official USATF-certified times to qualify or to get a corral placement, I wanted to find a race that was USATF-certified. So in July I signed up for the 9th Annual Annapolis Running Classic. I started training and working my Saturday runs up towards a 10k distance. Today, it finally all paid off.