Dewey Beach 5k

The rain isn't even raining. It's a permeating mist that just exists everywhere simultaneously in the predawn dark. Luckily we're already back inside with coffee.

Part of me thinks doing the little challenge races they pair with marathons is silly.

Another part of me remembers I need to do a shakeout run anyway, and a 5 or 8K with fellow marathoners is a good way to feel out the race ahead.

It's nasty out there today, but this is what we trained through the coldest months of the year for. This is why I got up in the dark and ran tempo runs on ice sheets around the reservoir in Central Park. Today is nothing in comparison, even if I'll be cold and shivering before I cross the start line (and probably after I cross the finish). 

One of the lessons I learned this training cycle is that I can survive the cold. I should absolutely get out of wet clothes as soon as possible. I should take vitamins and supplements and stay warm as long as I can, but shivering and tightening my muscles and focusing on the cold and worrying about it does me no favors.

Loose muscles, and a reminder that all pain, all discomfort is temporary, these are the things that get me through the coldest of runs.

That reminder hasn't come easily. I grew up in a 150 year old farmhouse off the shores of Lake Ontario. My dad made good money, but little of it ever found its way home. There were stretches where cuddling with the dogs for warmth was the only way to make it through a subzero night when the heat was turned off. And only slightly better days spent worrying if it would be back on when I got home from school. Fear of the cold, fear of freezing to death, is as deeply ingrained in my bones as my earliest memories.

Unlearning that fear has been scary and painful, and taken time. But I am endlessly grateful for the lesson.

Deep breaths. Calm mind. Run. Thats the starting line prep. We've got this.