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Jan 24, 2009 6:54 pm US/Central
Seniors, 82 And 83, Run Winter Carnival Race
(WCCO)
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"We'll warm up when we start running, I promise," said Joy Johnson.
CBS
Hundreds of runners embraced the frigid temperatures Saturday morning at the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The temperature at the start of the race was 13 degrees below zero.
The runners breath looked like steam engine smoke as they came down the road and ice formed on eyebrows and lashes, but two senior citizen racers were unfazed by the uncomfortable conditions.
Eighty-two-year-old Joy Johnson bundled up for a subzero quarter marathon.
"For a California girl, it's really cold," said Johnson.
Johnson just flew in a couple of days beforehand, but 83-year-old Burt Carlson lives in Minnesota.
"We'll warm up when we start running, I promise," said Johnson.
"You wear more clothes, you slow down a little bit," said Carlson.
At the last minute, organizers decided to cut the half-marathon in half again.
"It was really tough yesterday to make the decision to shorten the race, but with the temperatures and the wind chill, what they were forecasting, it comes down to a safety issue for the runners and especially for our volunteers," said Lori Koutsky.
Carlson finished in just over and hour. He wasn't even breathing hard.
"No, I'm not cold. The last mile or so, I got quite warm," said Carlson.
There was one problem.
"There's no cushioning at all in my shoes. The temperature is so low that the shoes just didn't work," he added.
Johnson was the last one across the finish line.
"My face and my fingers and my toes got cold," she said.
Even so, she wasn't wearing her hat anymore.
"I was actually perspiring and you don't want to lose that moisture out of your body," she said.
It was the fifth Winter Carnival race she's run.
"This is the coldest it's been," she said.
So the shorter race was welcome.
"I was very grateful when we had that turn around at mile three instead of at mile six," she said.
As frigid as the race was, it wasn't the coldest in the past 15 years. One year it was postponed because of 25 below zero degree weather at start time.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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