Race: 4th Annual Frosty’s Run
The thing Kimberly and I both recalled about last year’s Frosty’s Run is that it ‘earned’ it’s name. It was cold! I remember being very happy when we got to start running and warm the body. The other thing was how much we enjoyed the race. So there we were again, trying to get an early sleep Saturday and getting our not-so-young selves up at 4:50 AM Sunday morning to do a race. The difference being, this time even though the temperature was suppose to be better, we were far better prepared. For me that means double gloves, for Kimberly that means long pants and the little earband thinggie’ she has.
We got to the race in time to mingle a little and say hello to some of the familiar faces. Funny how many of the same cast of characters end up doing many of the local races. On the positive side it was also much warmer than last year, but that said, it is still cold as heck in the desert before the sun comes up. The race supports the local Hospice community and is held at Reach 11 Park just South of the 101 and Tatum. It is 10 Miles and ran entirely on the dirt trails in an area called Horse Lovers Park. Kind of odd in that the race is all on dirt trail (nice on the knees) and seems like it is in the middle of nowhere running the whole 10 miles, yet you are less than a mile from Desert Ridge and a couple from the busy Scottsdale/101 area.
Kimberly and I had good runs and in fact both ended up getting a medal for our age groups. This was kind of surprising in that last year we remember that Frosty’s had some really fast folks that ran it. Kimberly knocked a ton of time of her last year result and finished just over an hour and a half at 1:30:14 good for 57th overall and 3rd in her age group. Funny thing was, had the race been just 4 days later (after her birthday Dec 24th) she would have won her age group. Yet another good news - bad news thing about getting older 
. I crossed at 1:13:51 which was 2nd in my age group and 7th place overall.
The downside of our medal success was that we had to hang out to receive them. Which meant waiting until everyone is done with the race, they have gotten organized etc. Normally not a big deal at all, and happy to do it. This time however it proved an issue… We are in the midst of training for the P. F. Chang Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in 4 weeks. Because of this our schedules called for about 20 miles or running this day. Now most people just skip the races and do the 20 run like they wisely should - but we like to race to much. Other people who maybe do like us and do the race, just say the 10 miles is enough seeing it was a race and call it a day. Well…. not us stubborn types. We are suppose to do 20, then we need to do the race, then just go out and do the same 10 mile track and we will have our 20 in. Net result of this stubbornness and having to wait 1 1/2 hours in between the two 10 mile runs - PAIN. And I do mean PAIN in all capitals. There seems to be a window of time were you can run a race, hang out and then run again. I am not sure what it is, but I know what it is not. After about 8 miles into run two (and BTW the temps were now up 25 degrees), I turned and looked at Kimberly and said “I have had enough, how about you?”. Let’s say there was not an pause before her answer. Sadly it was still 2 miles back to the car, though it did allow us plenty of time to come up with justification on calling it a wrap 2 miles early.
We will be back next year hoping for warm weather and NOT planning to run after….