Bold N The Cold Race Report

Bold N The Cold 15K is in the books. The race lived up to its name for sure. We had another seasonably warm day yesterday, but a front came in over night and we woke up to mid 30's weather, and 20+ mph sustained winds out of the NNW. It was around 37 degrees at race start, with a wind chill of about 20 degrees. It was F'ing cold to say the least.

I rode over with David and did my best to stay in the car when I wasn't picking up my race number or hitting a port-o-john.

The race was held in Grapevine just on the South side of Lake Grapevine on a course I've done a number of runs and bikes on, so I was very familiar with the winding course, all of the hills, and the areas where I thought I'd be exposed to the wind coming off of the lake. I wore tights, a long sleeve dry-fit shirt, a wind breaker jacket, hat, and gloves, and didn't shed a bit of it as the race went on.

I probably got off to a bit of a fast start, but it was down hill with the wind for the first mile and it is hard to tell. I settled in at mile 2 and 3 pace wise, but never really got comfortable with the effort.

I was planning on taking in a gel on the course, but the water stops were unpredictable, and the amount of water they were offering in the cups would not have been enough to wash down the gel, so I was a little leery of stomach problems. I pushed on with out it.

Here were my mile splits:

1: 8:07
2: 8:24
3: 8:27
4: 8:18
5: 8:17
6: 8:27
7: 8:23
8: 8:14
9: 8:31
9.3: 7:47 pace

Overall I was 1:17.44 ish (8:20/mile) with a 173 HR. The race had just under 1,000 feet of ascent.

Heart rate was pretty low, but I think the cold weather had a lot to do with that.

The race did give out sweatshirts, and a skull cap (a toque for you Canadians out there) which was generous given the modest $25 entry fee.

Overall, I'm modestly pleased with the effort. I'm not sure what it tells me about myself. An 8:20 pace is about where one would guess you'd be if you are around 8:06 for a 10K, and 8:38 for a half marry. When I plug the time into this pace predictor, it tells me the effort correlates to a 50:46 10K (52 secs off my PR) and a 1:51.35 half marry (1 min 35 secs better than my PR), so who knows.

The conditions were miserable which will be good practice for whatever gets thrown at me at the half marathon I'm running next month. We'll hope for something more pleasant however.