Winter Chill 5K Series 2026

Years ago, a good friend who also happens to be an amazing triathlete told me about this series. At the time, my only experience with 5K racing was just that - racing. I associated it with PRs and the anxiety that goes with that for me, and a fall/spring effort. I wasn’t hardcore like Brenda. A 5K in January - every weekend? That’s insane.

One year Scott suggested it as a great way to make sure we run outside in the winter once our kids were mostly grown and we weren’t driving them to ski-racing (I did most of my winter running during their training time so my running miles were at risk now that they weren’t racing). A bit reluctantly, I joined into the fun and have run most of them for several years now.

My plan from Coach Alex called for a 2-3 mile warm-up, the race and then a cooldown. Typically for Winter Chill I’d roll out of the car with 2 minutes ‘til race time and then go run.

This morning I warmed up on streets near my house, changed clothes and hopped into the car for the race. It was 20 degrees and sunny, and Scott and I took the photos for this race. I decided I’d rather not be wet and cold for pre-race photos! Alex asked me to hit a time slightly faster than my independent time trial for this where I hit an 8:51 pace for 3. I set my watch for a range of 8:15 - 9 and hit a time of 8:50.

5 km in 27:47 // 41 of 91 overall, 3 of 14 age group, 8:57 pace // strava

Workout goal for today: 2-3 WU + WINTER CHILL (8:40 - 8:50) + 2- 4 CD

Just a week later and my goal required a bit more speed this week. It was a much warmer day (37 degrees) so even though we had signed up to take photos again, Scott and I did our warm-up at the race location. I ran a comfortable, slow warm-up, grabbed some photos and prepared to start. This time, I ended up with a time slightly faster than my goal: 8:35 overall which came about because my first mile was too fast. I got caught up in the fray and hit an 8:24 for mile 1. My following splits were slower by design and necessity. I came away from this run with my 2nd fastest time on the Winter Chill course (26:52) while my PR was from 2020 with a 26:19. My cooldown was lovely. Having not sandwiched speedier times into a longer run, I found myself understanding all the folks who make Winter Chill part of their Sunday long runs.

5 km in 26:59 // 50 of 97 overall, 3 of 12 age group, 8:41 pace // strava

For this race, Alex gave me two choices: progression pace that started at 8:50 and went down to 8:40 OR even splits. I went with the progression pace goal.

This was the last race we’d signed up to take photos and this time I remembered to grab a pre-race picture of myself! (From my training log) This was good. I planned on the progression option and set my watch for 8:40-8:50 for mile 1, 8:35-8:45 for mile 2, and 8:25- 8:35 for mile 3. I think I was going too fast in mile 1 and the watch gave up beeping at me after a bit so I thought I was hitting the pace. For mile 2 I often fell in the range so it beeped sometimes and mostly was fine. Mile 3, I got a few “too slow” alerts but mostly did ok. This felt hard but good. There’s nothing like doing something harder than what you have been doing (Hartshorne Masters Mile) to make what used to feel hard feel more comfortable. I listened to first half of Killian being interviewed on The Daily for my warm-up so that puts a 5K into perspective. My extreme mantra for the last mile was “you can rest when you are dead”

5 km in 26:36 // 37 of 78 overall, 3 of 11 age group, 8:34 pace // strava

I hurt my foot in speed training Tuesday evening before this run. I essentially took the entire week off from running following this fearing a stress fracture. Goal for this run was to run comfortably and pain free. To be eligible for the random award draw you have to do all 4 races and this was #4.

On this 9 degree day with a partially snow covered race course, Scott and I were happy we were not the photographers for this one! The club hired a professional photographer to get pictures of this final race. As the last race with the post-race party, it was staged out of the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, so we enjoyed the opportunity to be warm both before and after the run. I warmed up on the elliptical at home, opting not to risk my foot getting additional load, and planned to run more slowly than typical.

This was a lot of fun. I settled in behind my friend Matt and his dog Maggie which meant I had built in entertainment watching Maggie enjoy the snowy run. I marveled at how much more enjoyable a run can be when it is at a pace that is just a little less taxing. My paces: 11:48, 9:52, 9:02, and 8:28 for the last little bit when Matt was encouraging me to pass him at the finish. I won one of the 20 random prizes given to folks who ran all 4 races. $10 to Finger Lakes Running Company!!

5 km in 29:22 // 33 of 57 overall, 1 of 6 age group, 9:27 pace // strava