Greenland 25k

Greenland is one of my favorite places to train and is only 20 minutes from my house, so it made sense for me to register for this one. I had done it once before in 2012 and suffered heat stroke. Boy, were the conditions different this year!

I volunteered for another race, so I got this race for free, which was a huge benefit. Greenland is an 8-mile loop. I registered for the 25k, so I did 2 8-mile laps. We got a huge dumping of snow again, but I was really excited to run in the snow. I have ran Greenland in the snow many times with my doggies and it is so much fun. This race allows dogs so I took Lola. Up until this point, she had only raced a 5k. She is incredibly strong and I was sure she wouldn't slow me down.

When the race started, Lola got really nervous. There were tons of people surrounding us and she hadn't experienced that before. One lady with a dog came running past me and Lola kept trying to look at the other dog. I think she figured out that we were supposed to pass as many people as we could. We would come up behind someone and she would naturally swerve to the left so we could pass. Unfortunately, with the snow covering the trail, it was a little difficult to pass. The snow was really deep when you move off the main trail. I would tell people that I was coming, but not very many people would move out of the way. I am not sure if it was because they were listening to music or they were just miserable and unwilling to move out of the way. I had my face completely covered, but some of that sleet still stung the parts of my face by my eyes.

I stopped at the first aid station and asked for Gatorade. They gave me full strength Gatorade (not watered down). I felt like I might throw up. But, it gave me a huge burst of energy because my diet consists of very little sugar. Lola and I started charging up the hill and passing people, including the other dog that had passed us before.

When we completed the first lap, I realized I was in about 6^th place. Lola freaked out when she saw a lady wearing a Poncho. I guess she had never seen one of those before because she tried to run the other direction. Not sure what she thought it was, but the lady and I both laughed so hard. I took another Gatorade and water and started the second lap. This time, the Gatorade was watered down and tasted much better. I passed 2 more females, which put me in 4^th place. Then, Lola decided to stop and poop. It probably lost us about 20 seconds so I tried to make up time. We really started pushing hard. I told Lola, "Go! Go! Go! Good girl!" I could see the 3^rd place female up front, but couldn't get past her.

I ended up finishing 4^th Overall Female out of 136 females, which I was very excited about. I was only 8 seconds behind the 3^rd place female and was about a minute behind the 2^nd place female.

Many people asked me how Lola did because they were shocked that she was able to push through an entire 25K. There was only one other dog at this race, so I was incredibly proud. When I went to the post race food, I grabbed her a bag of pretzels and let her eat all of it. Then, we ran, not walked back to the car because I couldn't feel my fingers. Once I stop moving, I freeze. When I got home, I had to remove one of my toenails. One of the frustrating things about trail running.