After my fall half marathon (The Great GO! Halloween Half Marathon), I decided to sign up for a couple of winter races. I signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K and the 4 Mile Kirkwood race (part of the Snowball Series I did last year with Nathan). I’m covering both of these races in this post, starting with Hot Chocolate first, because that race I trained for with my coach and I succeeded in hitting my goal pace! Yayyy! I took a few weeks off from my coach after my half marathon to rest my body. I still ran, but I didn’t do the long runs or any speed/tempo workouts. Then, with my coach I trained for about 4-5 weeks for the Hot Chocolate. I was still fresh (ha, ha, don’t you love that word?) from just finishing half marathon training and I trained hard till the Hot Chocolate race date of December 8th!! I lucked out with BEAUTIFUL weather for December, it was sunny and only 44 degrees at the start. I had trained in much COOLER conditions, so this was GREAT weather for race day! I will say, I think I hate winter training more than I hate summer training. But, ask me again in the summer and I may change my mind on that. Ha, ha! The course was VERY hilly, which pretty much every race here in St. Louis is hilly!! But, I think I did really great with the hills, even though every time I finish a race I tell myself I need to do more hill training!
Hot Chocolate has AH-mazing food at the end of the race. You get a hot chocolate AND chocolate fondue!!! It took me a bit before I could actually eat it… chocolate always sounds great, but after running 9.3 miles on hills, it takes a bit for my stomach to want anything but water. It was SO good, though. The dippers were a rice Krispy treat, mini pretzels, a banana, a jumbo marshmallow and cookies. I wasn’t wearing it for the race (it was too warm), but they also give you a REALLY nice jacket that you can actually run in (!!) for this race.
They had some really cute inflatables to take photos by before and after the race. We got there a little early, so my sweet husband took some photos of me.
I just love the medal for this race!
I had never ran a 15K before, so really any time I would have gotten would have been a PR. But, I was really hoping to get around a 9:15 pace and I succeeded! I finished at a 9’16” pace! I really kept around that pace or higher except for a few miles, I think the hills just kind of caught up to me at the end. I landed up finishing at my goal pace, so I was SUPER happy! Now, if only I could keep this pace up for an entire half marathon (only a few more miles!).
Here are my stats for the 2024 Hot Chocolate St. Louis race.
Time: 1:26:18
Pace: 9:16
One of my FAVORITE places to go eat after a race (and shower!) is Peacemaker Lobster and Crab. They have the BEST lobster rolls (and hush puppies!). We also got drinks!! Brian got a wine slushy and I got some sort of holiday drink with champagne.
Snowball Series: Kirkwood 4 Mile Race
Now I’m going to recap a smaller race I did, the Snowball Series: Kirkwood 4 Mile Race. I did the entire Snowball Series last year, which consisted of 4 races in different locations with different distances (all 5 miles or under) in the months of January and February. The races are every other week. Last year, the Kirkwood race got canceled, they tried to reschedule it and it got canceled AGAIN due to ice. SO, I didn’t want to do the entire series again this winter, but I did want to do the Kirkwood race. Kirkwood is a really cute area in St. Louis and I really wanted to run the route. Once again, it was a HILLY course… super hilly… with some good downhills too! However, the challenging part was that we got this HUGE ice storm on January 5th with a good 4.5″ of ice with 4″ of snow on top and then a very cold weather system that lasted for weeks after… I was surprised they still had the race, because there were large sections of the race where we had to walk, due to all of the black ice. I slipped several times and I had to slow WAYYY down, I did not want to fall and injure myself. I’m 47, that would just to be good. Ha, ha! I will say, they did have people at each spot where there was ice and they warned us and told us to walk. But, still… it was a bit of a bummer, because it really wasn’t a ‘race’, more of an obstacle course! Ha, ha! It was all good though and I think we were all just excited to get it in, after the fact.
The Kirkwood race started at the St. Louis Community College at Meramec and it was nice that the college had an indoor area for us to go in to wait till the race started. It was FREEZING with the windchill. My Garmin even gave me the ‘Frosty Badge’ for recording an activity when it’s below freezing. Oh, YAY to that! Ha, ha!
I finished at a 9:35 pace, which was mehhh… but, granted, I was walking through sections of ice/black ice. So, I’ll take it! I really would love to do this one again under better weather/road conditions.
Here is the medal, which is SO cute with the little snowman on it!
Check out my other race recaps and running posts HERE on Pinterest.
