The doors opened for the Health and Wellness Expo at the Donna Marathon inside the Hilton Jacksonville at Mayo Clinic, and there wasn’t much doubt about the products in demand for many runners.
Jackets. Headgear. Apparel for staying warm.
As the winter chill tries to take center stage for the 19th Donna Marathon, officials and runners alike are taking steps to beat back the cold ahead of the annual Beaches race to finish breast cancer.
The FIS Donna 5K hits the road Jan. 31, followed by the full marathon and half marathon at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 1, traveling north from the SeaWalk Pavilion for a winding course through the neighborhoods of Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach.
Yes, that’s the same Sunday morning that’s in line for sub-freezing cold — potentially record-breaking cold — across Northeast Florida.
Even Florida gets cold, it’s true. And while the temperature might feel far from the Sunshine State norm, many experienced distance runners thrive in cooler conditions. Weather that’s warm, or even near standard indoor room temperature, can easily slam runners with various forms of heat stress.
But there’s cold, and there’s really cold. For many novice runners, the prospect of a marathon that lasts above three or four hours, much of that time below freezing, means a far longer duration in cold temperatures than they’ve previously raced.
Donna Foundation executive director Amanda Napolitano said that registrations leading up to race weekend have surpassed recent years, which likely also translates to an increase in first-time participants.
Mayor and race founder Donna Deegan said she enjoys cold-weather running, but when this weekend’s participants arrive at the SeaWalk Pavilion start line on Sunday, she’s encouraging them to prepare for the chill.
“I don’t want people to get the idea that this is just garden-variety cold,” she said in a remote interview with the Times-Union earlier this week from Washington, D.C., where she was attending the 94th winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors.
How cold will it get for Donna Marathon?
The good news: Compared to large sections of the country, the race-day forecast calls for no rain, no sleet, no freezing rain and no snow. The latter briefly appeared on the National Weather Service forecast earlier in the week.
The bad news: the temperature, and the wind.
As of the afternoon of Jan. 30, the National Weather Service forecast for Jacksonville Beach on Sunday morning projected temperatures around 26 degrees with northwest winds of 32 to 36 miles per hour. Weather authorities on Jan. 29 issued an extreme cold watch, rare in Florida, spanning the period from Saturday night (Jan. 31) through Sunday afternoon (Feb. 1).
If that forecast holds, the Donna Marathon’s start would be colder than the lowest official temperature recorded for the New York City Marathon (recorded variously at 41 to 43 degrees in 1995).
So, what can runners do?
Dr. Andrea Sharp, emergency medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic and race medical director, said the road toward a successful — and at least relatively more comfortable — cold-weather race begins the day before the run even starts.
Nutrition and hydration routines become even more important in cold weather. Sharp said that while some runners might feel that cold weather lessens the need for hydration, that belief is a mistake.
As with regular distance events, Sharp said that runners in cold weather need to make sure to follow their usual race-day nutritional routines, even if they don’t feel as hungry.
“Your body needs hydration and it needs calories to be able to physiologically generate the energy to warm up,” she said.
When the temperature plummets, layering is critical. Sharp said an ideal arrangement is an innermost layer made from a wicking material, an outer layer that offers some protection against wind and thermal insulating layers in between.
Also important: Protecting exposed skin, particularly around the hands, head and face, to reduce heat loss and skin irritation from the cold.
As for the question on some runners’ minds: How cold is too cold to run? Sharp cited data from the Road Runners Club of America, which pointed to a 5-degree wind chill as a minimum for safe running. Sharp said that Jacksonville’s cold snap shouldn’t imperil the race itself.
“We don’t anticipate that we’re getting there [too cold to run],” she said.
Deegan says she still hears from runners who completed the 2012 Donna Marathon, which at the time was the coldest race in the event’s history. Like 2012, she said, 2026 will end up making memories.
“People still talk to me about it,” she said. “It sort of becomes one of your battle stories.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Chilly! Donna Marathon runners prepare for cold, wind in race
Reporting by Clayton Freeman, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
