My first LSD with my new "running clinic" group (that's Long Slow Distance for those who aren't into the running lingo). Today was an easy 7k.
I joined up with a group of 3 other girls who were going at a reasonably slow pace for me. Always great to have some sticklers for the slower pace in the group. "Hold up now, ladies! We're going a bit too fast." My legs were sore after yesterday's triathlon training, so every time we slowed down I was happy. I was even more happy when the weather was forecast for rain but it was a pleasant overcast weather instead - not a drop of rain!
But the really interesting part happened in the post-run coffee. I've never run with this clinic before, and I was curious what people thought of the training.
The consensus of the group: Running Room is to get people involved in running and to get people to love running. The goal is to increase distance rather than speed.
My thought: rats! I want to increase speed - I already know I can do the distance.
So I spoke with a few people in the group about what I could do if my goal was to increase speed. As always with runners, everyone was filled with good ideas of "I read in X book that...." or, "for me, I found that Y works really well" and so on.
It certainly isn't the type of running club I'm used to from Australia (oh, how I miss my Australian running groups!). It will be interesting to see what happens.
Certainly, the coffee discussion gave me lots of food for thought. I may have to chew on some things for a while.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
K-100 Relay: Colour Clash Girl
It's a moonbeam... it's a rainbow. No! It's... it's... Colour Clash Girl!
...And away I fly!
The first 6k or so were a gentle downhill, and with the small head wind that flapped my cape out behind me, I really did feel like I was flying.
I had told my fantastic support crew to meet me every 3k for water. At 2.5k when they hadn't driven by yet, I became slightly worried. At 3k there was still no sign of them. I was rather disappointed! I had known that they might be delayed at the transition (long story. I won't even bother trying to explain it here), but I hadn't thought about how delayed they might be. I settled myself grimly in to my stride. My beacon of hope was that I saw a girl running ahead of me and I realized (with a competitive gleam in my eye) I could catch her!
Luckily, my crew zoomed up at the 4k mark to give me some much needed support and water.
They promised to stop every 3k thereafter, and kept their word. This was a good thing because the GPS on my watch cut out part way through (stupid mountains!) so I wasn't sure how far I had gone.
It was a bad thing because they always managed to stop on the uphill parts of my run.
Hill...
So after that first 6k, the road was filled with what a driver might call "gentle rolling hills", but what I as a runner called...well, I will leave that to your imagination! My pace slowed considerably and by 10k I was exhausted. I had been hoping to run under 90min (about 5.40min/km).
At 10k I realized this wasn't possible. I just struggled to keep going. And I remembered from my review of the course description that the second half had a lot more uphills than the first half! The only one I can blame is myself. I had been overly confident in my fitness level a month ago and started to slack in my training. Naughty, naughty me. I suffered the consequences!
(Aren't they a fabulous support crew? Running up the hill with me to give me water even after they've already done their 16k legs?)
By the second support stop (7k) my team had all caught up with one another. Let me tell you, coming around the corner or up the hill and seeing their cars all pulled over on the side of the highway was a huge highlight for me. Not only because it meant water. Not only because it meant a big screaming cheer of encouragement from my race buddies. But because it meant I was 3k closer to the finish.
And when I saw that marker one mile from the finish line, I was as ecstatic as I could be given my state of exhaustion.
Coming into the finish chute, I felt slow. I felt awkward. And I felt more than a little disappointed with my own lack of training/fitness.
So I did what any super hero would do in such a position. Fake it til you make it!
I grabbed hold of my cape, plastered a fake smile/grimace shape onto my mouth, and "flew" to the tag line.
I didn't make my goal time of sub-90minutes.
I made it in exactly 96.00minutes. That's 6min/km.
Oh, and I did pass that girl in the end! Yes, I was also passed by probably 5 other runners, but that's not the point, right? To each, her own race.
I guess I'll have to train harder when I do this relay next year! And you know what? I think I may wear my cape again too!
This is Colour Clash Girl, signing off from the K-100 Relay.
Yep, that was the super hero name I picked out for myself in this race. The only thing I was missing was my bright orange shoes (although the shoes I wore did have purple laces).
It was a really big struggle for me to wear my cape, in the end. My inner shyness crept out and kept whispering seeds of doubt over my decision to don the superhero cape. No one else is in costume. It hissed at me. You'll look silly.
Everyone will think you're an idiot.
Yes, those seeds of inner doubt that make me more concerned with being judged by other people than having fun. But do you know the one little thing that tipped the balance from non-cape-wearing to cape-wearing?
You.
Yep. That's right! It is you, my fantastic readers (whoever you are) that convinced me to get my colourful butt out there and Wear. That. Cape.
Yep. That's right! It is you, my fantastic readers (whoever you are) that convinced me to get my colourful butt out there and Wear. That. Cape.
Just me in my cape, hanging out at the tag line with a volunteer.
I thought about sitting down to stare at my non-judgemental computer screen as I typed out this blog entry and talking about how I chickened out of the cape. And I realized that I would be disappointed with myself for chickening out. I don't know how it happened, but years ago I made a pact with myself that I would step out of my comfort zone when opportunities came up.
So I took a deep breath and had my team mates help me pin on my tape. Did I feel ridiculous? Yep. Embarrassed? You bet! Judged? Absolutely!
But I put on a big smile and joked about how awesome I felt. Fake it til you make it, and all that. Draw a comfort zone snug around me, then take a giant leap outside of it!
The first 6k or so were a gentle downhill, and with the small head wind that flapped my cape out behind me, I really did feel like I was flying.
I had told my fantastic support crew to meet me every 3k for water. At 2.5k when they hadn't driven by yet, I became slightly worried. At 3k there was still no sign of them. I was rather disappointed! I had known that they might be delayed at the transition (long story. I won't even bother trying to explain it here), but I hadn't thought about how delayed they might be. I settled myself grimly in to my stride. My beacon of hope was that I saw a girl running ahead of me and I realized (with a competitive gleam in my eye) I could catch her!
Luckily, my crew zoomed up at the 4k mark to give me some much needed support and water.
They promised to stop every 3k thereafter, and kept their word. This was a good thing because the GPS on my watch cut out part way through (stupid mountains!) so I wasn't sure how far I had gone.
It was a bad thing because they always managed to stop on the uphill parts of my run.
So after that first 6k, the road was filled with what a driver might call "gentle rolling hills", but what I as a runner called...well, I will leave that to your imagination! My pace slowed considerably and by 10k I was exhausted. I had been hoping to run under 90min (about 5.40min/km).
At 10k I realized this wasn't possible. I just struggled to keep going. And I remembered from my review of the course description that the second half had a lot more uphills than the first half! The only one I can blame is myself. I had been overly confident in my fitness level a month ago and started to slack in my training. Naughty, naughty me. I suffered the consequences!
...After hill!
By the second support stop (7k) my team had all caught up with one another. Let me tell you, coming around the corner or up the hill and seeing their cars all pulled over on the side of the highway was a huge highlight for me. Not only because it meant water. Not only because it meant a big screaming cheer of encouragement from my race buddies. But because it meant I was 3k closer to the finish.
And when I saw that marker one mile from the finish line, I was as ecstatic as I could be given my state of exhaustion.
Coming into the finish chute, I felt slow. I felt awkward. And I felt more than a little disappointed with my own lack of training/fitness.
So I did what any super hero would do in such a position. Fake it til you make it!
I grabbed hold of my cape, plastered a fake smile/grimace shape onto my mouth, and "flew" to the tag line.
I didn't make my goal time of sub-90minutes.
I made it in exactly 96.00minutes. That's 6min/km.
Oh, and I did pass that girl in the end! Yes, I was also passed by probably 5 other runners, but that's not the point, right? To each, her own race.
I guess I'll have to train harder when I do this relay next year! And you know what? I think I may wear my cape again too!
This is Colour Clash Girl, signing off from the K-100 Relay.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
K-100 relay: Wile E Coyote
Relay Day!
It all began the night before when we camped at Longview. I was soooo excited to be camping once again after a 5 year hiatus but was told quickly by a team mate, "this isn't camping! We're in a playground!"
He was right. We were camping in a playground area next to the start line. But that doesn't mean it didn't feel a bit like camping, and nothing could dim my excitement/nerves over Saturday's race.
Many of you may remember that the only relay I've done has been the 500k relay for three years in a row, but that is my only relay experience. Having now completed the K-100, I will still call the 500k my favourite (although the K-100 is arguably much prettier)! But a relay is a relay is a relay. And relays are pretty awesome!
While we didn't have a "team theme", we did have a team name. I was super excited when my suggestion - Wile E Coyote - was chosen. I don't know if everyone else got the joke behind it (hint: who does Wile E Coyote chase?), but maybe they did.
I was running Leg 8 out of 10 legs. With the race being 100 miles, each section of the race was about 16k plus or minus a few!
Leg 8 was 15.9k and it said it had an overall elevation loss. Sounds good, right? It is! Except for the uphills at the end of the section...but we'll get to that.
I knew I would have a forced start at 4.15pm if my team mates weren't able to tag me off before that. Based on my team mates' calculations of their estimated finish times, there was a 50% chance this would happen. So selfishly, I was keeping fingers crossed that they would finish faster than their projected time so that I would NOT have a forced start! And of course, bonus to team mates who ran faster than they had predicted as well! We were slotted into the first wave of runners leaving at 6am, due to our projected teams. Wave 2 and 3 left at 7am and 8am respectively, as they would be much faster.
The bagel and coffee breakfast tent (courtesy of the race organizers) and the registration table for Leg 1. You could only register at the start of your leg, so I had some time to go and bagels to eat before it was my turn.
Since I had time to kill, I volunteered to be the support vehicle for the first and third legs. In 500k relay terms, this is like being the water truck according to Canadian weather.
In Canada, runners ran on the shoulder facing traffic, rather than with traffic, so no follow vehicle was required. We had about 3 cars from Calgary. Generally, one car would be responsible for the runner, pulling over to provide water as requested and take heaps of photos. Most people requested water every 3k, although some went as long as 5k without water. (This IS Canadian weather after all!). The other cars would come along and we'd form a Team 237 convoy, stopping together so we could get out and cheer for the runner as a team. It worked quite smoothly by the end, although the first bit had a few wrinkles and one particular speed bump, which I'll get to shortly!
Due to a surprising lack of interest, our team leader had to recruit 4 of our 10 runners from his home town of Edmonton, 3 hours north of Calgary. The runners from Edmonton had planned to drive in to Calgary the night before and would meet us at the start of Leg 4 of the race, when the first Edmontonian was scheduled to run.
So we left our Leg 3 runner chipping along at about 3k out from the finish to meet up with the Edmontonians. But the only problem was...they weren't there! Having been asked to arrive an hour ahead of our projected arrival time, this was a very unexpected speed bump in what had been up until this point a fairly smooth ride.
The well-organized race had volunteers at the 1-mile out station, who would radio in the team number of the runner who had just crossed the line for 1-mile out. This had the benefit of letting those in the transition area know a) how they were ranked against the 105 teams entered, b) when you had approximately 10minutes to get your butt to the tag line if you were running next.
And as they radioed in our team number with 1-mile out - and no sign of the Edmonton crew - we were all getting a little concerned! And because we had all felt secure in the knowledge that they would be there, we had no contingency plan for If They Didn't Show Up. So the only ones at the transition zone who were in their running clothes were those that had already run legs 1 and 2! Asking someone to run a second time after they've given it their all just a couple hours before seems sort of cruel. So we asked our leg 10 runner to gear up super fast and run leg 4 instead. He did, but not before our poor leg 3 runner finished his race...and then had to stand around and wait for someone to tag!
Mass chaos and frustration ensued, so let me just give you the outline:
-Leg 3 runner finished, but Leg 4 runner had not shown up
-Leg 10 runner was speedily trying to get geared up to run Leg 4
-just as Leg 10 runner jogged off to replace Leg 4, we heard that Leg 1 runner (also our organizer) had gotten tired of waiting and started off, with the plan that he would be replaced ASAP into the run by Leg 10 runner.
-2 minutes after Leg 1 runner started off on Leg 4, our Edmonton contingency (including Leg 4 runner) showed up.
We quickly bundled Leg 4 runner into one of the cars and zipped off to replace him with our Leg 1 runner, about 2k down the road. Phew!
In the end, it hadn't been a case of "something bad happened" to the Edmontonians but rather an unapologetic "oh, we just left later than we planned. No biggie.". I will not speak for my fellow Calgarian team mates, but I know I was super frustrated about the lassez-faire attitude. I love running. I love running in groups. And I LOOOOOVVVVEEEE relay runs.
But sometimes, I don't love all of my fellow relay team mates. Sometimes I remember why it is so nice that running is mostly an individual sport.
Yet despite this small (but frustrating) hiccup in the first part of our relay, everyone was running faster than their projected times and I realized at the end of Leg 5 that I would be tagged off! No forced start for me! I was super stoked...this is what I had been training for! Or rather, this is what I should have been training for...
(To be continued).
It all began the night before when we camped at Longview. I was soooo excited to be camping once again after a 5 year hiatus but was told quickly by a team mate, "this isn't camping! We're in a playground!"
He was right. We were camping in a playground area next to the start line. But that doesn't mean it didn't feel a bit like camping, and nothing could dim my excitement/nerves over Saturday's race.
Many of you may remember that the only relay I've done has been the 500k relay for three years in a row, but that is my only relay experience. Having now completed the K-100, I will still call the 500k my favourite (although the K-100 is arguably much prettier)! But a relay is a relay is a relay. And relays are pretty awesome!
While we didn't have a "team theme", we did have a team name. I was super excited when my suggestion - Wile E Coyote - was chosen. I don't know if everyone else got the joke behind it (hint: who does Wile E Coyote chase?), but maybe they did.
Location schmocation. I'm sleeping in a tent, ergo, it's camping!
Leg 8 was 15.9k and it said it had an overall elevation loss. Sounds good, right? It is! Except for the uphills at the end of the section...but we'll get to that.
I knew I would have a forced start at 4.15pm if my team mates weren't able to tag me off before that. Based on my team mates' calculations of their estimated finish times, there was a 50% chance this would happen. So selfishly, I was keeping fingers crossed that they would finish faster than their projected time so that I would NOT have a forced start! And of course, bonus to team mates who ran faster than they had predicted as well! We were slotted into the first wave of runners leaving at 6am, due to our projected teams. Wave 2 and 3 left at 7am and 8am respectively, as they would be much faster.
Since I had time to kill, I volunteered to be the support vehicle for the first and third legs. In 500k relay terms, this is like being the water truck according to Canadian weather.
In Canada, runners ran on the shoulder facing traffic, rather than with traffic, so no follow vehicle was required. We had about 3 cars from Calgary. Generally, one car would be responsible for the runner, pulling over to provide water as requested and take heaps of photos. Most people requested water every 3k, although some went as long as 5k without water. (This IS Canadian weather after all!). The other cars would come along and we'd form a Team 237 convoy, stopping together so we could get out and cheer for the runner as a team. It worked quite smoothly by the end, although the first bit had a few wrinkles and one particular speed bump, which I'll get to shortly!
Enjoying the views along the Highwood Pass.
Fellow team mates showing off my sexy decked-out support vehicle.
Here come the runners!
Flooded areas off the side of the Highway.
Due to a surprising lack of interest, our team leader had to recruit 4 of our 10 runners from his home town of Edmonton, 3 hours north of Calgary. The runners from Edmonton had planned to drive in to Calgary the night before and would meet us at the start of Leg 4 of the race, when the first Edmontonian was scheduled to run.
So we left our Leg 3 runner chipping along at about 3k out from the finish to meet up with the Edmontonians. But the only problem was...they weren't there! Having been asked to arrive an hour ahead of our projected arrival time, this was a very unexpected speed bump in what had been up until this point a fairly smooth ride.
A typical transition cone, equipped with water, sports drink, pylons, and... port-o-potties! I love you, race organizers! No "facilitrees" for me today.
The well-organized race had volunteers at the 1-mile out station, who would radio in the team number of the runner who had just crossed the line for 1-mile out. This had the benefit of letting those in the transition area know a) how they were ranked against the 105 teams entered, b) when you had approximately 10minutes to get your butt to the tag line if you were running next.
And as they radioed in our team number with 1-mile out - and no sign of the Edmonton crew - we were all getting a little concerned! And because we had all felt secure in the knowledge that they would be there, we had no contingency plan for If They Didn't Show Up. So the only ones at the transition zone who were in their running clothes were those that had already run legs 1 and 2! Asking someone to run a second time after they've given it their all just a couple hours before seems sort of cruel. So we asked our leg 10 runner to gear up super fast and run leg 4 instead. He did, but not before our poor leg 3 runner finished his race...and then had to stand around and wait for someone to tag!
Mass chaos and frustration ensued, so let me just give you the outline:
-Leg 3 runner finished, but Leg 4 runner had not shown up
-Leg 10 runner was speedily trying to get geared up to run Leg 4
-just as Leg 10 runner jogged off to replace Leg 4, we heard that Leg 1 runner (also our organizer) had gotten tired of waiting and started off, with the plan that he would be replaced ASAP into the run by Leg 10 runner.
-2 minutes after Leg 1 runner started off on Leg 4, our Edmonton contingency (including Leg 4 runner) showed up.
We quickly bundled Leg 4 runner into one of the cars and zipped off to replace him with our Leg 1 runner, about 2k down the road. Phew!
In the end, it hadn't been a case of "something bad happened" to the Edmontonians but rather an unapologetic "oh, we just left later than we planned. No biggie.". I will not speak for my fellow Calgarian team mates, but I know I was super frustrated about the lassez-faire attitude. I love running. I love running in groups. And I LOOOOOVVVVEEEE relay runs.
But sometimes, I don't love all of my fellow relay team mates. Sometimes I remember why it is so nice that running is mostly an individual sport.
Yet despite this small (but frustrating) hiccup in the first part of our relay, everyone was running faster than their projected times and I realized at the end of Leg 5 that I would be tagged off! No forced start for me! I was super stoked...this is what I had been training for! Or rather, this is what I should have been training for...
(To be continued).
Sunday, June 15, 2014
All Fun on the Beach
Hot, sunny, humid Florida! What a perfect place for a run on the beach. (And stuffing my face with food, and visiting my grandfather, and shopping...but let's keep to the running side of things, shall we?)
My grandfather lives right on the Gulf of Mexico, with a beautiful 4k board walk out front. But who wants a board walk when you can have BEACH?
So I tied up my laces and out I went onto the beach.
Beach running is tough, but fun. It is always a challenge to push off against the soft sand. I wasn't sure how far I was going to run (other than "not really far, but not really short, either"). But fortunately the beach has two rock borders on it, so I felt it was fair to run from one to the other and back again.
Fortunately, it had rained earlier in the morning which cooled off the temperature quite a bit. And it even drizzled with a welcome rain while I was running. (Warm rain! How I've missed warm rain!!!)
It was fun to run along the wet sand and play chase with the waves. After the first 500m I gave up trying to keep a decent pace and focussed on a decent effort instead.
A round trip between the two rock borders was 7.3km. But that was soooo close to 8k, I just had to push a little more! So I ran a little bit past my grandfather's condo to get a nice round figure of 8k. As I stopped my watch, I noticed I was at around 53min. Much slower than my 8k race time of around 42min, but then, this was all beach!
And it was alllll fun.
PS - I still can't believe I signed up for the relay next week! 16k through the mountains! Yikes!!! I definitely don't feel ready for it.
My grandfather lives right on the Gulf of Mexico, with a beautiful 4k board walk out front. But who wants a board walk when you can have BEACH?
So I tied up my laces and out I went onto the beach.
Beach running is tough, but fun. It is always a challenge to push off against the soft sand. I wasn't sure how far I was going to run (other than "not really far, but not really short, either"). But fortunately the beach has two rock borders on it, so I felt it was fair to run from one to the other and back again.
Fortunately, it had rained earlier in the morning which cooled off the temperature quite a bit. And it even drizzled with a welcome rain while I was running. (Warm rain! How I've missed warm rain!!!)
It was fun to run along the wet sand and play chase with the waves. After the first 500m I gave up trying to keep a decent pace and focussed on a decent effort instead.
And it was alllll fun.
PS - I still can't believe I signed up for the relay next week! 16k through the mountains! Yikes!!! I definitely don't feel ready for it.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
So Close
The Calgary Marathon Festival was on this past weekend. Or, as I continuously call it the "Brisbane Marathon Festival" (wishful thinking?)
I entered the 10k.
As readers of my past blog entries will know, I originally had a goal time of sub-60, which took into account my minimal training this year. I then proceeded to get a sub-60min in my first 10k training run of the year, without hardly trying and carrying a backpack. So I sat down and re-thought my goals.
My previous PB was held at 54.00 from the 2012 Bridge to Brisbane. Now as far as I'm concerned, that PB has not reached it's expiration date yet, so I'm still good to go! But the question lay...could I get a PB in this race? Should I try?
The second question was easy: YES! I always try for PBs in a race. I'm the eternal optimist about my running abilities.
So with my wonderful Mom as my support crew, I lined up at the start for my first "race" race in Canada. (There was the MEC race of last week, but I didn't treat that one like a race).
Milling about at the start of the "Everyone Else" race (ultra marathon, marathon, half marathon). Exception was the 5k, which got ripped off with a rotten start time of noon.
I am still adjusting to the Calgary weather and opted for pants instead of shorts. At the start line, I'd decided that I sort of would have rather had shorts over pants. Oh well, lesson learned! It wasn't enough of a grievance to blame it for my lack of PB achieved. (Yep. I just spoiled the ending! No PB in this race).
The weather was, for all running purposes, GORGEOUS! I cheered on the marathoners / half marathoners / 50k ultra marathoners as they took off, and lined up.
I was one of the first people out there and hung back a bit. Then as it filled in I realized I'd accidentally seeded myself waaaay to close to the start line. As in, I was in the sub-50min group! I edged my way backward when another runner begged me to stop. I was wearing one of my Gold Coast race shirts which had the big bold letters of "FINISHER" written across the back and she said she wanted to watch it as her inspiration. Who was I to say no?
Out of the 3,053 runners in the race, who did I happen to see along the course but the 5 members of my triathlon group who were participating in the same race? I tell you what, the odds are not in the favour for that to happen!
I had a strategic plan to stick to that I had worked out ahead of time. If I ran at a pace of around 5.25-5.30 for the first 5k, I would only have to pick it up a little notch on the second half of the course (to around 5.20) to get a PB. Unlike previous races, THIS TIME, I was going to stick with the plan and start off slow!
So I did.
...And they're off!
The first 5k went really well and I averaged 5.27min/km. And at the 6k mark I even managed to push my time to a 5.15 pace. But by the time that 6k marker hit, I knew I didn't have it in me for a PB.
And while PB is always the "ultimate" goal, I hadn't actually set it as my A-Goal for this race. I'd set an A-Goal as a sub-55min. So when I realized the PB wasn't an option, I re-set my focus to a sub-55min instead. It would have been easy at that time to settle for my B-Goal of sub-58min, but I just couldn't let myself slack off too much.
So I knuckled down, gritted my teeth against the pain and exhaustion, and kept going.
Once again, my watch came up as saying the track was 200m longer than it should have been.
Once again, I have decided to trust the race directors more than my watch, and count the official time instead of my Garmin time.
Total time: 54.55min
Hooray! A-Goal achieved! It was a hard push at the end. And even though I didn't have my trademark "speedy" finish, I was pretty proud when I crossed the finish line in front of the Stampede Grandstand.
An awesome moment was watching the Maple Leaf gal run across the finish line* with some of the half marathoners. A part of me thought it would be really funny if she fell over, but she managed to avoid that particular embarrassment.
*Note - she didn't actually run the entire half marathon!
The one thing I will say about the Calgary race; I don't think I've ever had so many race goodies! After I'd caught my breath and met up with my fellow triathletes, I grabbed one of each of the freebies and juggled them out to meet my mom, where we sat down munching the post-race snacks and enjoying watching my fellow racers cross the finish line.
Eventually, we did leave. But with the sun beaming down, the music blaring over speakers, and people screaming and cheering and talking and laughing and the racers pushing hard to finish their own personal races, I could have stayed there all day.
But then, there's no sense messing with the tradition of post-race brunch!
I entered the 10k.
As readers of my past blog entries will know, I originally had a goal time of sub-60, which took into account my minimal training this year. I then proceeded to get a sub-60min in my first 10k training run of the year, without hardly trying and carrying a backpack. So I sat down and re-thought my goals.
My previous PB was held at 54.00 from the 2012 Bridge to Brisbane. Now as far as I'm concerned, that PB has not reached it's expiration date yet, so I'm still good to go! But the question lay...could I get a PB in this race? Should I try?
The second question was easy: YES! I always try for PBs in a race. I'm the eternal optimist about my running abilities.
So with my wonderful Mom as my support crew, I lined up at the start for my first "race" race in Canada. (There was the MEC race of last week, but I didn't treat that one like a race).
I am still adjusting to the Calgary weather and opted for pants instead of shorts. At the start line, I'd decided that I sort of would have rather had shorts over pants. Oh well, lesson learned! It wasn't enough of a grievance to blame it for my lack of PB achieved. (Yep. I just spoiled the ending! No PB in this race).
The weather was, for all running purposes, GORGEOUS! I cheered on the marathoners / half marathoners / 50k ultra marathoners as they took off, and lined up.
I was one of the first people out there and hung back a bit. Then as it filled in I realized I'd accidentally seeded myself waaaay to close to the start line. As in, I was in the sub-50min group! I edged my way backward when another runner begged me to stop. I was wearing one of my Gold Coast race shirts which had the big bold letters of "FINISHER" written across the back and she said she wanted to watch it as her inspiration. Who was I to say no?
Out of the 3,053 runners in the race, who did I happen to see along the course but the 5 members of my triathlon group who were participating in the same race? I tell you what, the odds are not in the favour for that to happen!
All set to go in my high visibility hat.
I had a strategic plan to stick to that I had worked out ahead of time. If I ran at a pace of around 5.25-5.30 for the first 5k, I would only have to pick it up a little notch on the second half of the course (to around 5.20) to get a PB. Unlike previous races, THIS TIME, I was going to stick with the plan and start off slow!
So I did.
Shot of the leaders. I am not in this one.
Random crowd shot. If you think you see me, you are mistaken.
The course wound it's way out of the Stampede grounds and through downtown. Our biggest hill was in climbing over an overpass bridge, but I could handle that. The race event was big enough (a total of ~10,000 people crossed the finish line) to draw a crowd of onlookers and supporters and entertainment, which is always awesome.
Only in Calgary...do the horses come out to watch the race as well!
And while PB is always the "ultimate" goal, I hadn't actually set it as my A-Goal for this race. I'd set an A-Goal as a sub-55min. So when I realized the PB wasn't an option, I re-set my focus to a sub-55min instead. It would have been easy at that time to settle for my B-Goal of sub-58min, but I just couldn't let myself slack off too much.
So I knuckled down, gritted my teeth against the pain and exhaustion, and kept going.
Don't I just look like the picture of joy?
Butt view...thanks, Mom!
Once again, my watch came up as saying the track was 200m longer than it should have been.
Once again, I have decided to trust the race directors more than my watch, and count the official time instead of my Garmin time.
Total time: 54.55min
Hooray! A-Goal achieved! It was a hard push at the end. And even though I didn't have my trademark "speedy" finish, I was pretty proud when I crossed the finish line in front of the Stampede Grandstand.
Look, I'm a Pace Bunny!
*Note - she didn't actually run the entire half marathon!
The one thing I will say about the Calgary race; I don't think I've ever had so many race goodies! After I'd caught my breath and met up with my fellow triathletes, I grabbed one of each of the freebies and juggled them out to meet my mom, where we sat down munching the post-race snacks and enjoying watching my fellow racers cross the finish line.
Congrats on reaching 50 years, Calgary Marathon! Here's hoping I can join you for the next 50.
Eventually, we did leave. But with the sun beaming down, the music blaring over speakers, and people screaming and cheering and talking and laughing and the racers pushing hard to finish their own personal races, I could have stayed there all day.
But then, there's no sense messing with the tradition of post-race brunch!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)