Coldest race you have ever run in and time

99615 wrote:

22 degrees, moderate snowfall. 3200m : 9:01

Yes we know Trevor, we saw the video already..

Mine is going to be tomorrow - it's supposed to be 20 degrees at race time for a 4 miler. I was hoping to run just under 20 minutes, but with the snow that just fell that may be more difficult.

Previously my coldest was 31 degrees a couple weeks ago. That wasn't bad at all other than a bit of ice on the road. Ran in the 15:20's for 5K.

10K snowshoe race in Alaska, -24 F at start/finish, colder than that in the inversion hollows on the course.

10K road race in Colorado - in the single digits and a foot of snow on the ground (course icy but plowed), with some national and world class runners (e.g., Grete Waitz doing it as a fun run but she still ran 35 or 36) in the mix.

15K XC ski race in Minnesota at -30.

In the early 80s I ran a 6 mile road race in Central Park. It was 6 degrees and there was a wind. Normally I would have stayed home but a friend was race walking it, so I went. I was curious about how the weather would affect me. Cold weather garments were not as they are nowadays. I wore long johns, two pairs of shorts, two short sleeved T shirts and one long sleeved one. I had a woolen hat and mittens. I warmed up in sweat pants and a ski jacket over the racing suit. About 600 people showed up. We left our warm-up clothes in the car. At about the half way mark I asked myself, do I feel any different than I would normally feel at the halfway mark? The answer was no. I finished in 37 minutes about a minute slower than I would have run on a much warmer day. The problem didn't come until after I finished. My race walker friend had the car key. He wouldn't finish until about the 54 minute mark. I had to keep jogging to stay warm. I kept looking at the finishers although I knew he wouldn't be along for many more minutes. I'm glad I ran that race. I still venture out for my daily run even if it is zero degrees. The clothing is much better now.

2003 NCAA XC Champs in Waterloo. ~2 degrees with windchill. I didn't run since I was the alternate.

I've done a couple of winter road races where the ice patches were bad enough that we each would have to shout and point to the people behind.

But the coldest was probably footlocker regionals in Wisconsin, which was also windy and snowy and thoroughly miserable.

Banana Bread wrote:

I remember it is cold, and I'm not talking snowy mountain Wyoming cold. It was colder then that. Yakutia would be an exotic place in summer, but go in winter and you need to rap up properly. A race singlet is crazy. Well we all make mistakes. I done a local mary there. I didn't win but I was the first person with out snow shoes. I complaint to organisers that I want the first place for non snow shoe category. What I wanted most was a blanket. You would be amazed at what some one that cold would do for a blanket.

Out of interest, what is your first language?

Gardner MA, 10-mile race, January 1976.

22 degrees + windy. Not that cold, but during a driving blizzard.

Layer of ice formed under the soles of shoes, slipping & sliding.

Ice in my beard, a little kid yelled: Look mom, it's Santa Claus!

60:14

Marathon in Burlington Vermont 10 degrees and windy time around 3:30

that was in January 1980

Was a low key club 5K in Albany, NY. Might have been single digits, but was very windy and wind chilly. All I know what that I brought a lot of clothes for my warm up...and decided to keep them all on for the race. Guessing I ran 20 or 21 minutes when I was probably a 19 minute guy on better conditions. It definitely didn't feel like a race running so bundled up.

I speak English. Of course thats my first language. Why do you ask? I'm not from Yakutia or Wyoming that I mentioned in my post, but I'm still a native English language. Maybe some day we will meat :)

Despite living almost my whole life in the northeast, my coldest race was in Helen, Georgia -- the Hogpen Hill Climb in January 1994... +16 degrees Fahrenheit at the downtown start... colder as we left town and got out into the wind. They changed the route that day because the road up the mountain was closed due to snow, ice, and wind.

Don't remember the time, and it would not matter anyway because the race was an "odd" distance .

I don't remember the temperature, but I ran in Stu's 30k, (New Englanders know) in the early 90's, and it snowed so hard about 15 minutes into the race, almost everybody went off course. And, by that, I mean, various people went down wrong roads, at different locations.

Was that clubs 2008 your thinking of?

USATF Club Nationals in Spokane was pretty cold (20s, as I recall), but it was the wind that made it feel brutal. Went to use the outdoors porta-potty about 20 minutes before the gun went off, and a gust of wind lifted the front of the john a good 3" off the ground while I was inside, attending to business. That was scary. Say it was 25 degrees, with 20 mph winds would make it feel like -3. That's about right. Went xc skiing today in 12 degree temps and it was just fine.

em_em wrote:

Not a race, but I ran a 1:26 on a local half-marathon course to see how tough it would be.

-46°C (not including wind chill, -58°C with), never again.

That's -51 deg Fahrenheit and the wind chill converts to -72 deg Fahrenheit. No one's buying what you're selling

That was the coldest race ever for me too. 26 times a one mile loop in a parking lot. Last Chance for Boston qualifier in Dublin, Ohio. And all the runners who endured that and qualified and ran Boston that year faced worse conditions. 80 degrees and high winds. I bet none of them ran as fast as their qualifier in 5 degrees in Dublin that day.

The 1979 10K Freezoroo in Madison, Wisconsin, when it was 9 degrees.