Angela and I have talked many times about traveling to do a race together, but have never followed through. A couple months ago it came up again and I told her I knew the Hot Chocolate 15k in St Louis was coming up. Next thing I know, we're both signed up. :-D We decided to make a weekend of it and made the 5-6 hours drive Friday night. Our first night we stayed with Angela's parents who live across the river in Illinois. Two firsts right from the start- for dinner Angela introduced me to a St Louis original, Imo's Pizza (delicious!!), and our stay at Angela's parent's house. I've never been to Illinois before. :) Saturday Angela gave me a tour of her hometown before we went into St Louis.
Our first stop was Union Station where the expo for the race was being held. This expo was pretty great. Not for the amount of vendors, or any freebies that were given out, but because it was very well organized, even with the large number of people wandering around. The volunteers were well informed and were able to guide racers from one station to the next to gather everything through the check in process. Another thing I really liked was that there was a whole table for trying on our race hoodies (Hoodies, not t-shirts!) without having to take yours out of your swag bag. Then there was another area for exchanging if needed. Everything flowed very nicely!
Once we were done at the expo we decided to get a feel for the course and drive it. Angela has done the Hot Chocolate 15k in St Louis twice before, but since her last time running it, the course has been moved from the downtown area to Forest Park, with a couple miles outside the park. This actually was not as easy as we expected because of a couple areas we were unable to drive through, or signs we missed for turning. We got a good enough idea of the course that once our drive got us back to the park we decided to move on with our day. It was past lunchtime and we were hungry! The plan for lunch was to try out another local place called Fitz's where they make and bottle their own root beer (in a huge variety of flavors!). The food was delicious and it was really neat to see the bottling process. It was a fun place to visit!
Full from lunch we went to do a little shopping. We had fun and lost track of time, which had us getting a late dinner and checking into our hotel later too. This is probably the latest night I've had before a race, but it's pretty worth it to have the time with Angela. We spent a quite a bit of time gasping over our view before getting our stuff laid out for Sunday morning.
I didn't sleep much Saturday night. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but I woke up long before my 5:15 alarm. When we were both ready, we went down to get some breakfast (breakfast at the Hampton Inn is SO good!) and then drive to Union Station where we would catch a shuttle (another first!) over to Forest Park. We hit every red light in the mile and a half between our hotel and Union Station. I was starting to get a little nervous. The last shuttle was scheduled to leave at 7, and with a start time of 7:30 I felt like we were cutting it close already. We got super lucky finding a parking spot about 2 blocks away, not only that, but it was free. In a city where it seemed impossible to find a place to park that didn't have a fee, we happened to find one quickly and at a time that my anxious self needed most. Right at 7 our shuttle (school bus) left Union Station.
Even though I was still anxious (Start line anxiety is real, people!) I felt better once the shuttle was moving. I knew that no matter what I'd cross the start and finish line. It was still difficult, but I think... hope... Angela could tell I was trying. lol I think I was even able to remain fairly calm when we arrived at the park but had to wait our turn in the line of buses to get to the drop of location, even though we were in a roundabout area with no traffic other than the busses. I really was just wishing they'd open the doors to all the busses and let us off. I'd have rather walked 50 more feet than sit on the bus any longer. Finally it was our turn. We were 10 feet off the bus before Angela and I started jogging to the gear check tent... except we couldn't find the tent. There were so many people around and I was really surprised considering the race was about to start. Why wasn't everyone in their corrals!? So we followed the crowd of people into a building packed full of racers... where there was nothing happening. We asked a number of people if they new where gear check was and no one had a clue. I was looking for race volunteers, while Angela had a better idea to look at the bibs of people to see if they had the gear check tag taken off. No one did. It was like the tent didn't exists. We were leaving the building and as we stepped out heard the National Anthem being sung. We stopped moving, and as soon as it ended started jogging again. I noticed a tent on the other side of the corrals, so we tried to go that direction. I have no idea how people got to the gear check tent before the corrals filled up. There had to be a way around, but we couldn't find it. At this point the race had started... Actual, for real, countdown and all, started. Definitely a first. I have never missed a start. And we still had not made it to gear check. I was about to run the whole 9.3 miles with my bag. I didn't even care. We found a place where the corral gate was separated and went in, and basically worked our way across the corral, like a fish swimming upstream, while that section moved forward, waiting for their turn to start. I felt horrible and it seemed to take forever to get to the next open section of gate, but we got out of the corrals and started jogging again to the tent. It took very little time at all to check my bag, so we made a fast stop at the porta potties that were right behind the gear check tent and just before the corrals. I had been listening to the MC announce the start of each corral and at this point he had called through C. We were in corral E, and based on all that I guessed where our corral people had moved forward to and found an opening in the gate. Turns out, I guessed correctly. We were right with the others in E. We had missed the official start of the race, but not the start for our corral. I was truly amazed. We had just enough time to get my traditional start line selfie before our group moved up. Within 2 minutes of joining the corral, we were crossing the start line. It was such craziness, but we made it. :)
The course for this race is very nice. As I mentioned before, most of it is in Forest Park.
What I remember of the area through the park at the beginning, and it's probably because we drove it first, is all the bridges. They were beautiful! If it weren't so cold, I would have taken pictures. My gloves have lost the ability to be able to touch the screen effectively on my phone. It's pretty disappointing given how much I like to take pictures when I race. Anyway, it was so pretty. I love running by water, and all the bridges we crossed were over water. There were aid stations every couple miles and a couple of them had special treats. The first one I remember, a little before mile 2 I think, had large chocolate chips, and another one had marshmallows. I have no idea if all the stations had treats.
We left the park at about 4 1/2 miles and shortly after mile 5 we entered The Grove. I had to look it up, but I figured it was a big landmark for St Louis because there were big light up signs at either end of the main road. It's a business district, but from what I saw there's a lot of art and diversity as a part of the area.
Leaving the grove we made a somewhat tight U-turn in a courtyard type area to head back towards the park. Around this point is where we had decided to stop driving the course on Saturday, but I knew once we were in the park it was mostly a reverse of what we had already done. Up until now I had been feeling ok. The temperatures were so cold but I was trying to ignore it. I actually did take one layer off around 2 miles, and I didn't feel TOO cold unless we were running into the wind or a big gust would blow through. But around mile 7, with a little over 2 miles to go, I was starting the positive self talk, and at the same time, hoping I was the encouragement Angela needed to get us through the next 20+ minutes. Angela had mentioned being prepared to walk if needed and while I fully believe there is no shame in walking, I was fairly sure Angela didn't need a walk. So I worked on finding out what we both needed to get to the finish. I cheered on runners we passed as they were heading out and we were heading in, we both put on music, and with just over one mile to go I told Angela to start counting "roadkill" (runners you pass on a course). Roadkill is something Angela has told me about for her Ragnar races. It's kind of stuck with me for the last couple years, but I knew it was something she would relate to. So we started counting. It's actually kind of amazing how much more you notice about the runners around you, when you're counting them as you pass by. Two distinct people I remember in this last mile- One lady was walking, and we had such a minimal distance to cover, compared to what we had already done, so we both were telling her to keep going. She told us her asthma was acting up. Ugh! No good. I didn't count her in our roadkill count. The other one was a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old. She was with her dad or other adult family member and I was just amazed that she was more than 8 1/2 miles in to this 9.3 mile run. She wasn't the first kid we had seen either. I can't even remember the number of kids we passed, either going the same direction or passing on the out and back section. In fact, there were at least two the passed US on the way back as we were on our way out. It was the coolest thing!
I was counting down the minutes as we got closer to the finish line. It's been a while since I've done a race that I wasn't able to picture the finish line. Having no idea where the last turn actually was, or what it looked like was odd. So I just kept counting down and looking. I saw the mile 9 marker and new we had 1/3 mile to go. I saw the mile 3 marker for the 5k runners and knew we had just 1/10th to go. It was about that time that I saw the finish line arch through some trees. Angela said it was so far. I felt that. But said no way, it's right there! We were tired and we were so cold, but we were also 45 seconds from being done!
We crossed the finish line and I remember passing quite a few people before I going up to someone holding out a medal and trying to smile while saying "me, me, me!" :-D But we were not so done and out of it that we didn't see a photographer and stopped for a professional picture. Oh, yes... FREE pictures! Oh how I love a race with free pictures!!
From this point on, for the next hour or so, things are slightly foggy. Well, anything after the first 15 minutes post race, that's what is foggy.
We received our medals, and along with that there was a guy standing towards the end of the finisher's chute with a basket of Nuun samples. I immediately opened one and practically broke a tooth biting it in half to get in into my bottle, but I wanted to do what I could do stay hydrated and sane. I had planned to have more water through out the race, but the one time I grabbed some, it was literally frozen. In addition, I didn't bring my own water bottle or fuel of any kind. Probably that wasn't very smart, but in the packing moment I thought I'd be ok. So by the end of the race I was definitely needing fuel and hydration. I practically drank a whole bottle of water right away while I waited for a Nuun tablet to dissolve in my next bottle of water. Our first stop was the gear check tent (which was WAY easier to find at this point than it was before the race when there were thousands of people around). We both had dry layers in our bags. The difference in how things went from this point on is that Angela went into an oversized porta potty and changed nearly completely, while I just took off my running jacket and added a couple dry layers to my already wet self. Note to anyone reading... this was a bad, BAD, idea.
After changing and adding layers we went to use our coupon and get our finisher's mug of goodies. Thankfully there wasn't a line and we got our mug quickly, but things went downhill for me so quickly that I didn't even enjoy all my stuff. There were many blow up photo ops and I had planned and hoped to get pictures with all of them.
Pictures with all of them did not happen. With each step I felt myself freezing up. Shaking a little more. We got our picture with the one giant chocolate bar and I told Angela we could leave. She told me it was fine and we could stay for more. I believe she meant that because she thought I was thinking she needed to head to the shuttles. I'm sure if I had been in my right mind, that would have been a part of my thought process. All I could say to her was, No. I have to go. I needed to get out of the open air. Where I expected the shuttles to be was actually only the start line, and when I realized we still had a ways to get back (not actually that far, but it felt like way too far) it was all I could do to not start crying. Angela was talking to me. I truly have no idea what she was saying. I was trying to pay attention but the cold and pain was getting worse and worse. I was carrying my finisher's mug of goodies but couldn't figure out the best way to hold it so that it wouldn't hurt or so that I wouldn't drop it. The shaking was so bad my hot chocolate was sloshing over the sides of the cup. I saw the busses but there was a short line. I vaguely remember Angela saying something about having to wait in line, but did we actually have to since there were a number of busses there waiting. I'm pretty sure she made a decision to not wait in the line of only about 10 people, but it was 10 people too many because at this point I had started crying and was not able to get it together, and we moved on just passed the first bus and got on the second bus with two other people. We went straight to the back where I proceeded to cry. I couldn't figure out what would best make me feel better. I took off my gloves so that I could maybe use my hot chocolate to warm up. Before I even got to wrap my hands around the cup I was jerking uncontrollably. It would't have mattered, it took less than 5 minutes for the hot chocolate to go from scalding to lukewarm. The outside temperature was just too cold. Some time between when we got on the bus and when the bus started heading back to Union Station, I began to have some clarity. I was still cold, but I could control my movements again. I was able to have a little bit of the treats from our mug and fondue. Angela was so sweet and opened a few of the treats for me. I was even able to finally answer some texts and messages from my family and friends.
I've never had symptoms of hypothermia before. Another first. I wouldn't say I was actually hypothermic. That could be overly dramatic. This was by far the coldest race I have ever run. I've never felt like I did post race. And that includes my first full marathon where the temperature dropped 30 degrees and I finished the race in freezing rain and sleet. I had to look up the symptoms because I didn't want to exaggerate. On a minimal scale, I met about half of the symptoms. Symptoms or not though, I despise being cold, and this feeling was beyond miserable. Words can't compare. By the time we got back to Union Station (a 10 or so minute ride), I was just a normal cold rather than a not able to function cold. We got off the bus and started walking back to Angela's car. Angela offered for me to go inside and she would meet me on the street. I told her that was silly and I'd walk to the car. She then pointed to the street we were parked and said, that's where we have to go... it was only a block or two, but to look at it, it felt SO FAR AWAY. I didn't even hesitate. I said, ok, I'll come out when your pull up. Looking back it seems so stupid. But I really think I would have fallen back into a not good place if I continued walking to the car.
This whole last bit of my recap is not to feel sorry for myself but to seriously point out the importance of dry clothes post cold weather race. I didn't even mention the temperatures. When I say it was cold, I mean IT. WAS. COLD. A feels like of 9 at the start, and 17 when we got back to the van. Not good in sweaty clothes. Angela definitely did the right thing in changing as soon as we could! Lesson learned. We got back to the hotel and while we waited for the elevator in the parking garage I couldn't help but get down close to the space heater. I would have hugged the thing if I wasn't worried about burning my clothes. Although, that may have felt better than the cold I was still feeling.
I'll bet you're thinking this is where I wrap things up. Nope. :) While we were in the room getting things sorted and ready for hot showers I noticed that my medal was missing a piece. The top of the medal has chocolate with a bite out of it, but my chocolate was missing. Instead it was very sticky gold. I figured I would email the directors later on and see if I could get a replacement. I went back and forth about if it mattered. But really, it did. It mattered a lot. We had also talked about walking from the hotel down to the arch, a less than half a mile walk, and getting some fun pictures with our medals before leaving the hotel. I still wanted to do this, but was disappointed that my medal would not be whole in the pictures. As we walked, I decided that it was all a part of this story of firsts. We took our pictures of our medals with the Arch, using Angela's for the up close ones, and then went back to the car at the hotel. We had decided to go back to Forest Park, taking a chance that anyone would still be there and be able to help me with the medal situation. I was resigned to the worst case scenario in which I would be told I'd have to contact the director via email and then maybe hopefully they would have a medal available to send me. I had to walk all over the race area and talk to a handful of different people, but in the end the best case scenario happened. I left the broken medal on a box next to a bin of extra medals and drove away with a good one. I could have cried again I was so happy. Another first and lesson learned. If your medal is anything but perfect, take a chance and try to get one that IS perfect!
My weekend of firsts did not end there. Apparently it's blasphemous to say I've never been to IKEA... so before we even arrived in St Louis we had planned to go to IKEA after the race to get meatballs (the big thing, right?? lol) for lunch and then walk around before getting in the car for 5 hours. It was a fun experience that I look forward to doing again when I've had more sleep, less miles run, and more time to truly enjoy the walk through. :)
From new restaurants, to record low racing temperatures for myself, to post race happenings, this was definitely a weekend of firsts. Angela and I have run sections of races together, but never a race from start to finish. I'm so happy we had this experience together! I would not change a thing. Every experience helps us grow as runners. Including a compromise in paces in order to run together or temperatures that turn your hair into icicles (that actually happened to Angela!). What an experience this was. So much so that with only two runs post race and a recap not complete, I have already signed up for another Hot Chocolate 15k!! Two months to go. Let's see what I can do in that time!
Final race stats:
