We were forced to park in a field about 5 minutes away from the club house because the road to the main entrance was closed off for the races. It was a long dirt road to get to the area. Honestly, with all of the dust kicked up it felt like I was travelling to some other rural dimension of sorts. After parking we had to walk on a paved path past two golf holes. It was damn windy! Holy crap. I was wearing a light jacket, t-shirt, gloves and shorts. I was shivering. I didn’t mind the cold air, but having it fly past really lowered my core temperature.
The 10K crowd wasn’t terribly large. According to the stats there were 568 of us. The start came quickly. Unlike Scotia where it took me 8 minutes just to cross the starting line, I got across in 45 seconds. The first 400 m out of the golf club wasn’t so bad, but as I went along I really felt the pavement; it felt harder than I expected. With every step I could feel my shins reacting. People were passing me left and right but I was determined not to get caught up in the excitement.
The course took us into a subdivision. It felt kind of odd to be running in a residential area. I mean, races tend to cause commotion, right? I was wondering how the residents in the area felt about having so many people go through. I was surprised to see some homeowners out there cheering as we went through.
Now, the racing crowd was thinner around me by the time I got to about 2 or 3K. I picked out a few people that I used as landmarks of sorts. I kept an eye on them and used them to sense whether I was falling far behind. Early on, there was this big red-headed guy that I figured would run a bit slow, but he pulled out ahead of me pretty easily. I sensed though that I could manage to keep him in my sights. There was also trio of people–one guy and two girls. The three of them pretty much stuck together. If one got far ahead, he or she would take a break and wait for the others to catch up. It seemed like they would pass me in bursts before slowing down and pausing. I kept a steady pace and passed them when they were slowing down. Eventually the guy stopped waiting for the girls and ran up far ahead. My shins at this point were just sore. I couldn’t tell whether the cold air was just making my shins tighter or something. For the first few kilometres I kept pace and did well with my calculated splits (i.e. I should have reached X kilometres by Y time). However, with my achy shins I slowed down a little bit. I eventually lowered my expectations. I told myself “Oh…well…I suppose 80 minutes isn’t too bad.” I seriously felt that I wouldn’t be able to keep speed for long. I wasn’t doing 10 and 1′s for this race: I was running it straight. I wanted this to be strong, but those first few moments had me doubting myself.
When we got out of the subdivision, we had to start a long uphill climb for the next few kilometres. I knew that this would be my time to shine. All my time with the hill training made me think that the hill was something I would have no trouble with. I just wanted to make sure that I kept a steady but strong pace. I passed the two girls on the hill. There was this other woman in a red shirt. She was taking frequent breaks to make it up the hill. I managed to catch up to her, but every time I did she would just burst forward and pull up a few metres ahead. I didn’t let it deter me–I kept my even pace and passed her again and again. It was very give and take right until the turn around point at the top of the hill. That’s when I pulled ahead of her and I never saw her catch up again.
From the turn around point the course was mostly downhill all the way back to the golf course. There was this woman in a purple jacket with her hair done in a French braid. For the longest time I saw her maybe 100 metres ahead of me. I did catch up to her though on the downhill part. There was a car on the course coming at us on the shoulder. I took the moment to start a chat with the woman about how unsafe that was. She laughed and agreed. Wow, it was rather nice to connect with someone along the way. Well, I guess that didn’t last long because I pushed a little bit harder to get past her. I never saw her again.
At about 7K, the course for the half-marathoners joined the 10K course. They started half an hour before us, so they had a lot more progress than I did. Holy heck, hey were passing me left and right. By my calculations, it would have been correct for them to be blazingly fast because the people passing me were in for sub-2 hour half-marathons.
A bit past 7K I saw a 10K power-walker starting to pass from the corner of my eye. All I could think of was “OOOOOOOOooooh NOOOOO.” I tried not to let is bother me. He stayed about 20 metres ahead of me for a while. Then I decided to push harder to catch up. I made it, looked over and exclaimed “whoa, that’s some some amazing walking, there.” He thanked me. He started talking about seeing the head of the 10K racers coming down the path. Yeah, I remembered that from way down the hill; they were already on their way in, and I was just amazed. Anyway, I pushed to keep pace with the power walker. I stayed with him for about half a kilometres. When the 8K mark came, I decided that I would just give it all I could. I used that renewed push to pass the walker. I never saw him on the race again. I was really pouring it on because I had that fear in the back of my mind that the power walker would be just behind me if I slowed down. So, I picked up the pace and pushed as much as I could. It wasn’t enough to keep up with the fit half-marathoners that were still passing me, but it didn’t matter.
The 9K mark came and went. There were some people taking a walk break at that point. I made it a point to turn back and encourage them on. I really don’t know what that was about–I guess I genuinely wanted them to do well and finish strong. Though, maybe part of it was a bit selfish in that I wanted someone to run with me so that we could encourage each other and feed off each others energy. No such luck though. I did have the club house in sight though by then. So I knew that that would be a great time to really give it. I ran hard down the last stretch. At one point I heard my name but the ending was all such a blur that I thought it was just a figment of my imagination. In a flash it was all over. A volunteer took the chip off my ankle, and I was given my medal and a bottle of water.
Oh, that was awesome. I knew that I did well enough to meet my expected 75 minutes. I couldn’t have even imagined that I bested it by two minutes–what with all of my shin issues at the beginning. I mean, that really slowed me down! I’m so happy that I made up for lost time. I think, if I manage to find away to not have sore shins then I will have an even stronger time. I know I have a long way to go training-wise, but man, I know that I’m making improvements. All of this hard work is just beginning to pay off.
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