Monday, December 22, 2008

Yaks?

The winter running journey continues. This time the Finnish Five Mile with my daughter. Conditions were wintery: windy, snowy, slushy, cold. We both stretched and jogged to "warm up." (I was kidding myself, warm up? To convince our muscles to work maybe, to feel warm, hardly!) We took off, but my Garmin thought it was too cold and had to be tapped and massaged into starting after we had begun running. Then there were those slushy uphill segments. Yuk! Lots more work, except for those veterans in front of us wearing their "Yaks." (A code work for chains for shoes.) Eventually they jingled out of sight while my daughter and I carefully sought out the less slippery, possible traction areas. Just as we got to the last 400 mark, the 28 years younger daughter says, "Let's sprint in, Mom!" I hated to tell her that the last mile was pretty much my sprint pace, so I said instead, "You go, girl!" Then as she made her move, something in me said, "Get over this age excuse and get going!" So I did and I managed to finish 8 seconds behind her. For us it was another learning experience: buy "Yaks" and "Finnish" well. (For my daughter, age group first; for me, age group third.) Not a bad winter day.

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