This year, I celebrated Valentine’s Day two days late with the love of my life, running, with the Sweetheart Shuffle 10K in Omaha, Nebraska. This would mark my last race in my 20s.

PC: Bodies Race Company – Omaha

PC: Bodies Race Company

I have noticed for some time my Garmin tends to give me a shorter distance/slower pace the longer I keep the machine on without pressing start and decided to shut it off and restart, right after which the race director began to count down from ten. (I honestly do not know what I was thinking, or lack thereof, doing this following the national anthem.) I anxiously waited until the watch relocated the satellite, which put me in the way back of the line, and I spent the first thirty seconds or so squeezing through and running around slower participants, yelling, “Excuse me! Sorry!” Panicking, I initially even forgot to play the music playlist I created, but I managed to recover and find my rhythm about a minute in. I would not be surprised if this uneasiness inadvertently made me run faster than I would have in the beginning, as I tried sprinting past many, which I never do at the start of a race.

The nearly 0-degree temperature caused my ears slight pain for the first mile, but then my body produced sufficient heat for me to forget about the cold. Because pretty much all of Nebraska received snow the day before, the trail was covered in snow but thankfully not slick enough to worry me. I could see my eyelashes had frozen but did not realize how hilarious my entire face looked until a lady asked to take a photo of me upon my 10K completion to show her husband the brutality of the temperature.

I crossed the finish line in 50:02.1, which upset me having come so close to running a sub-fifty again, even blaming arguably the most inconvenient start of my running career because of my instinctive careless decision to restart my watch so close to the race. I later found out some runners dropped out due to the frigid cold, so I should simply feel grateful having sturdily overcome this condition. I will now shift my focus to a 50K in Ottawa, Kansas, on March 30, 2019, which means I must make time to train on my three-week business trip to Korea that starts next week. Thank You, Jesus!