So, as I told you, Dacey and I planned to do the Freeze Your Fanny 5k Run on Saturday. We signed up on Wednesday with temperatures promising to be in the teens to mid-twenties. Immediately after we signed up, the weatherman began dropping the temperature. If you remember right, Friday’s weather was not pleasant. Blowing wind, snow, dropping temperatures, so I began to panic. Not so much for myself, but the mom in me was having fits about what I signed my son up for. Campbell Supply came to my rescue with facemasks and warm gloves, plus our favorite Aunt Linda gave us Land’s Ends vest for Christmas that seemed like the perfect layer in between four others.
Saturday morning broke with balmy zero degree temperatures, but unlike Friday, there was no wind and the sun was shining, so you didn’t really feel the cold. We headed in to Madison with a van full of happy supporters. Rachel had two friends with her, plus Mike, ever ready to be the family journalist. After we arrived at the Downtown Armory, we decided it was still plenty slippery outside with our path well covered with snow and ice. My generous husband ran out to One Stop and purchased YAKTRAKS, grips for the bottoms of your shoes highly recommended by our friends, the Waldners. We loved them. It kept us moving on the ice and snow and we didn’t have to worry about slipping.
So, as soon as we all were set to go, twenty of us braved the cold and a lot of slippery roads and ran our little journey around Madison. On a warm day, no one would have even flinched at the distance. Walking or running we basically circled the town, from Center St, to Union down to 8th St. S. up Egan and then a quick jaunt over to the Courthouse and then back to the Armory.
To get the final .1 of the 3. 1 miles we had to circle the block around Heritage High, but the cheerleaders were all cheering you on the block before. It kind of threw us for a loop, because here we thought we were to the finish line and bummer, we had a block to go. Oh well. We all had fun. Dacey stayed with a young girl the whole way and they did a great job of encouraging each other. Dacey’s friend Austin came in first — Good for you, Austin, and Nikki Troxell took the women’s race.
So, were we cold? Not at all. I came home and threw all the four layers we were wearing in the wash, because they reeked of sweat. No worries about frost bite.
Thanks to Kathy who did a great job organizing, to all of the vendors who supplied great gift certificates and silent auction items, and volunteers who fed us lasagna, kept track of our times, and made sure we didn’t “Freeze our Fannies” too much. Remember this is a fundraiser for a group going to Guatemala to help with an orphanage. Go to www.leahskids.org to find out more.