Fox Valley Winter Trail

A very, very, cold race.

This race was an 8K (almost 5 miles) that took place at a forest preserve in Aurora during peak winter, so it was no surprise we needed to layer up to avoid frostbite. A run-loving friend I worked with found this race online and told me about it.

This was my third race, but unlike the other two, it was a trail run, meaning trudging through miles of snow. After a 10K and a half marathon, though, an 8K seemed doable — even in winter.

Prep, No Prep

I don't have too many pictures of the trail itself, mainly because it was too much of a chore to take my phone out and snap a picture with gloves on, especially in the freezing cold.

The race wasn't terribly long, but it had snowed the day before, so running through it added some extra time. The race was riddled with inclines, hard on the legs even going downhill. It starts on a wide, open trail before heading into the woods, in a mix of single and double file. The first incline hit at the 2K mark — nothing major, though the snow was slushy and I slipped a little on the way down.

It stayed like that for a bit, nothing too exciting — until I came across the Big Hill. Not a mountain, but in the Midwest, a hill that size was formidable. Going up and down took about twenty minutes; I got a brief reprieve at the top. The rest of the trail was, by comparison, unremarkable: just another mix of wooded and open sections. We had to run the whole trail twice to finish the race.

Unfortunately, despite all the effort, I didn't get a medal — you needed to run the entire series (this was the second of three) to earn it. The last race was the next day, but after my first experience running in the snow, I wasn't ready to jump back in so fast. But at least I burnt some calories that morning!