It had its ups and downs

Man…I’m already into the evening hours and I’m still feeling worn out. My legs certainly got a good workout in today’s event. I will preface this entry saying that I’m pleased with the results. In fact, I might even say that I’m ecstatic about them. Interesting thing is that it wasn’t even a personal best. Ah, but more on that later. My apologies if this race report turns out a little bit sloppy. It’s long…and I’m tired. So there. Race details after the jump!

It’s interesting how the race date falls on Daylight Saving Time. It gave me an extra hour to get my act together this morning, but honestly I don’t think I needed it. I had laid out all of my gear the night before so that wasn’t an issue. I actually woke up at 6 a.m. to make sure there was enough time to eat something and digest it. I got it all down and had enough time to lounge around for a good half an hour before even leaving. That extra time though made me second guess different things about my game plan. I decided to not bring my water belt. After the last race, I wanted to give the race a go just relying on the water stations along the way. The drive was pretty clear. When I got there, I had an hour to kill so I was milling about the clubhouse talking to whoever I recognized. Wow…I seem to know a good number of people, eh? I was just going back and forth, back and forth.

Soon enough, the race start time came by. We all filled the chute area. Someone in front of my let out a big yawn, at which I had a good laugh. She told me she wasn’t sure what to expect. Well, really, neither did I but I told her about the route being hilly. Really, that’s one of the consistent things people always mention about the race. Then the countdown came….and we were off. I knew that I’d likely have to slow down considerably due to the hilly terrain, so my plan was to run faster than my ideal pace at the beginning. I know that to run a 2:30 half marathon I have to make an average pace of 7:07/km. So, I stuck it out and kept an average of 6:45-6:50/km for as long as I could. The first part of the race goes through a subdivison. I was familiar with it because I ran through the same area when I was did the 10K last year. I treated it like a warm up and basically kept pace with people around me. Soon enough I was out of the area and onto that 2K incline. Honestly, that hill felt shorter than it did last year. Maybe it’s just that I knew that there would be worse to come. In order to keep 6:45 I kept a mantra going in my head: FOCUS. Whenever I saw myself going slower I picked up the pace.

At the end I started heading east. That’s when I started experiencing the rolling hills that everyone was talking about. Honestly the hills aren’t particularly steep–there are just a lot of them in succession. Every time there was a hill I made an attempt to motor through as others walked up. I made a few gains that way, but in the end people just caught up. I think that extra effort wore me out quicker. There really was a lot off give and take with the people around me. Around 12K was where I started feeling the effects. My pace starting slowing down a little bit. On my watch I could see the average pace creeping closer and closer to the 7:07 mark. By 14K I was taking longer walk breaks. My legs were just fatigued. It wasn’t until about 16K that I somehow picked up my second wind. I just kept on plugging away at it, but the hills just got tougher. By that point I was averaging slower than 7:07, so I decided to revert back to my stated goal of making it within 10 minutes of my personal best.

After a long hill between 18K and 19K I was on the home stretch. It was at this point though that I started feeling cramps in my right calf. It was pretty bad. Every few hundred metres it would start spasming. I figured that I had better focus on good form to prevent it from getting worse. I knew that if I did continued sloppily there would be hell to pay. So yeah, I just worked through it.

In the last stretch, I saw a couple of other racers that I remembered from the beginning in the subdivision. Seeing them just made me want to run through with confidence. I was happy to see them, though not in the sense that I caught up, but more that they were just familiar people. I made it through to the end feeling happy with myself. I knew that I’d come within a minute of my PB. I was smiling widely and feeling like I’d done something great. I was walking slowly around the clubhouse recognizing a ton of people from the store. Everyone was just so happy, and that made me happy. Besides the tasty buffet, they also had free massages downstairs, so I signed up and got them to work on my stressed out calf. God, it worked wonders. As for the food, even though I only had one plate, I managed to get a good amount on there. After eating I joked to a couple of others that I just felt so full that I could puke. Hah.

So that was my experience this year at Angus Glen. The starts have already been posted, and upon examining I see that my time was 2:33:33.4. I was in shock. That number is actually just a mere 11 seconds away from my personal best in Mississauga–and that was even with a ton of breaks in this race. So, it makes me think that I’d be able to achieve a better time on an easier course. That is just insane! All things considered though, this race was a wide positive split. I’m sure that I would have done better if I started slower and the beginning and picked up the pace farther along. Overall, I was last in my division, but it’s a small race in general with 600 participants. As well, you won’t see a lot of casual runners doing this because the hills are apt to whoop ass, right? No matter. I know that I pulled out a good race despite everything. It’s wasn’t perfect, but I’m still proud of it nonetheless.

Possibly related posts:

1. The race, and the sleep deficit
2. Hit by a train
3. Goals for tomorrow’s race