Some early spring races you’re pretty sure you’ve frozen your head off.

The temperature was 16 degrees. A strong wind blew from the northeast, off Lake Michigan. “This is going to be painful,” I thought to myself.

The thin tight line

The starting pistol rang out and the leaders formed a thin, tight line heading into the northeast wind. No one wanted to lead, of course. But someone did.

Probably the guy we saw lying dead or frozen on the return trip down the park drive. It was either a dead guy or a pile of garbage, but you cannot always tell at the end of a Chicago winter. Everything looks the same. Grey and compressed. Either the snow flattens the landscape or the wind blows everything away.

Spring detritus

Racing through the washed out detritus of spring is always a strange sensation. Even when you’re fit and prepared, as I was for the Shamrock Shuffle that year it was so cold, there’s a vague uneasiness that you’re moving too fast through what is obviously a dead and not year revived landscape.

The first mile was awful. Straight into a biting wind, laughingly laced with spray off the whitecaps on Lake Michigan 150 yards distant. That’s right: Water flew through the air for more than 100 yards and struck us cold in the face. “Fuhhhhhhhhccccck,” I heard one runner moan, wiping sea foam from his cheek. I passed him by. “Kindy chilly, ain’t it?” I said. But my lips weren’t working that well.

Well prepared

I was dressed well enough to handle the weather. That wasn’t the problem. I also trained on the lakefront all the time and was quite used to the sound of gulls laughing at you as you leaned 45 degrees into the wind, trying to reach the turnaround point before your back gave out. But this was a race. Performance counted. All the training in January and February…depended on for confidence… felt long gone. It was just me, the wind and a few nearby competitors.

Turning back with the wind the pace got manic. All of us were running so fast it was necessary to land our heels to keep from falling forward. Looking down at my watch at the 3 mile point the split was 15:15. The first mile had been 5:10. So the middle two miles were really quick.

The crucible

But when you turned around on that spit of ground on Montrose Point in north Lincoln Park, the last 2 miles loomed like a crucible. 2 miles straight back into the damned teeth of that wind. Cold air blew through the weave of my tights. My feet and hands were even stiff as cardboard. My face, frigid. Lips tingling, then numb. Nothing to do but toe up and try to keep pace.

Crossing the finish line in 16th place, 1:20 behind the leaders it was good just to be done. My time of 26:15 was nothing to brag about, but it was fine by me.

April Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago

It makes sense now that the Shamrock Shuffle is held in April instead of March in Chicago. Those early days of running in March brought quite a few cold mornings. Even early April remains a risk, yet global warming is making it possible to be confident that April will spring warmer than 16 degrees.

It took most of the day for my thace to faw that day. I mean, my face to thaw. But that’s what memories are made of. That, and frozen spittle.