Well, my first race of the 2010 season is officially in the books. Race morning brought us some pretty ideal weather compared to the last few years. No rain and nice temps with little wind, made the race much more enjoyable.
I went out on my "stretch goal" pace of 4:30/km (this would bring me in at 2:15 for the race if I could hold). The first few kms went buy without incident. Its a fairly big race (over 7000 people), so it's a tad crowded, but I positioned my self towards the front with similar paced runners. By 6.5kms I had spotted the 2:15 pace bunny (a runner who wears a hat with bunny ears, marking him as a pacer for a certain time). I figured I would just tuck into the group that was following him. I went through the first 10 km just under pace, and remained with the pace bunny until about 12km. At this point a moved slightly ahead of him, mainly because it was crowded running around him (as it often is - they are popular people for runners who aren't comfortable pacing themselves). For this reason I try and avoid running near pacers for too long.
The next several km's were pretty smooth. I was mostly to myself, and was just holding the pace. In around the 18km mark, I was starting to feel a bit of power loss in the legs. Not surprisingly, this is the point in the course where the hills begin. I knew they were coming, so I tried to push through. I hit the 20km mark still slightly ahead of pace, and was happy with how I felt through this portion of the race.
But I knew the next 7km are the toughest of the race...hills come in all forms here - shorter steeper, longer gradual, its not killer, but late into the race, it will zap you if your not prepared (and I was slightly underprepared for the pace I was running). At 22km's, the 'pace bunny' group went by me. I was never far ahead of them, but it sucked watching as they passed. I tried to go with them up the hill, but the legs started feeling tight, and my range of motion in my stride was decreasing. I decided to manage as best I could, let them go and just make it through the hills on my pace. At 25.5 km's comes the biggest hill. As we headed down the proceeding hill, one spectator referred to it as heading through the valley of death - he's not far off ;-)
Anyways, one foot after the other, and I was in the valley - sometimes going downhill is worse than going up. The legs can take a pounding and my left quad felt like it was being punched with every step down the valley (gotta love it). I then made the long steep climb out of it. Going uphill you use your posterior muscles, so the hamstrings and lower back come into play. My lower pack was slightly tight, but it didn't last too long - soon I was out of the valley...
From here on out, the last 3km of the race are flat to slightly down hill. I pushed onward and was able to only slightly pick it up. My main goal now, was more about not slowing down too much as opposed to running much faster. Next thing I know, I'm rounding the corner to go down the ramp and into the finishing stretch; which for this race is inside of Copps Colosium (kinda cool). I looked up and saw the clock at 2:19 something. I felt pretty good, grabbed my medal and post race food, and met up with a few others I knew running.
My official chip time ended up being 2:18:55. Not too bad considering this past month (sickness) and the training focus (bike) the past several months. Hopefully I can start working in more running to the training - I'm ready to get back to PB form!
Thanks for reading,
Jon
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Pre Race Thoughts - Around The Bay 30km
Well its the day before my first race of 2010, and like most pre-race days, its pretty uneventful. Just relaxing around the house, and getting my things together. Going to be heading out in a few hours to go down to the race and pick up my bib number and timing chip. My uncle will be joining me as well, as he is already into another calendar year of monster races (he's already done a half marathon in Feb... and I've lost track of how many times he's done this race now).
My preparation for this race was thrown a bit, as I missed 12 days earlier this month with sickness. I have also been focusing on the bike over the past several months, as this race was never an 'A' priority race for me. That being said, I never get to the start line not wanting to give my best and push myself, so it will be interesting to see where I am at, and get a bench mark for this time of year. Last year when I ran this race, it was entirely different, as I was almost solely doing run focused training. As a result, it ended up being my best race of the year, setting a PB of 2:11xx).
This year, my stretch goal is to go 2:15. I don't think I've done enough work to set a PB, and think I'll have all I can do to hit 2:15. My plan is to go out on that pace, and run the first 10km with my head! Meaning that I will assess as I go, and if the pace is far to hard, I will have to back off a bit (you can't fake a 30km run), if I go out too fast, I'll end up in the ditch ;-) If I think I have a chance to hold the pace, then I'll try and hold on for dear life!
Sounds like it could be a cool day, and possibly a wet one with rain in the forecast. That's one of the great things about racing - no 2 races are ever the same. I've been racing for a number of years now, but it still gets the blood flowing just thinking about being at the start line. You just never know, how the body will perform on a given day, and testing your limits is half the fun of the race!
Gotta Strive,
Jon
My preparation for this race was thrown a bit, as I missed 12 days earlier this month with sickness. I have also been focusing on the bike over the past several months, as this race was never an 'A' priority race for me. That being said, I never get to the start line not wanting to give my best and push myself, so it will be interesting to see where I am at, and get a bench mark for this time of year. Last year when I ran this race, it was entirely different, as I was almost solely doing run focused training. As a result, it ended up being my best race of the year, setting a PB of 2:11xx).
This year, my stretch goal is to go 2:15. I don't think I've done enough work to set a PB, and think I'll have all I can do to hit 2:15. My plan is to go out on that pace, and run the first 10km with my head! Meaning that I will assess as I go, and if the pace is far to hard, I will have to back off a bit (you can't fake a 30km run), if I go out too fast, I'll end up in the ditch ;-) If I think I have a chance to hold the pace, then I'll try and hold on for dear life!
Sounds like it could be a cool day, and possibly a wet one with rain in the forecast. That's one of the great things about racing - no 2 races are ever the same. I've been racing for a number of years now, but it still gets the blood flowing just thinking about being at the start line. You just never know, how the body will perform on a given day, and testing your limits is half the fun of the race!
Gotta Strive,
Jon
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Down, But Not Out.
The past few weeks have been some of the toughest so far, but not for reasons you may think. I haven't been on the trainer hammering big 2-3 hour rides, or doing lots of tough runs. In fact, I wish that were the case!
Instead, me and my family were all hit with varying degrees of sickness. I thought I was going to be able to dodge it, as I am rarely sick, but it nailed me good. Long story short, my training was derailed big time - I missed 12 days straight with everything from a high fever, sinus infection and a lung infection.
This past week was my first back to training, and it felt like I was starting all over again. My muscles were sore from workouts that were very easy and relatively short. Its hard to digest, when just a few weeks ago, a 26km run would hardly phase the muscles, but now a 9km run left me sore the next day!
Anyways, as this week progressed it did get better. I am easing my way back into things, and it seems as though there is no sign of any more sickness (both for me and my family). That being said, there is no denying the effects of being sick. It is going to take some time to regain the fitness, and the kicker is that my first race is just 2 weeks away. At the end of the month I am doing the Around the Bay 30km run, and my goals for the race are certain to undergo a shift in light of the recent events. I will have to see how the next 12 days go, and then I'll assess where I'm at. There's not doubt that I will not be where I would have, if not for the sickness, but I will still use the race as a 'test' to show as a benchmark for where I'm at. On the positive side, this race was not an 'A' race for the season, so I am not crushed by the timing, though still bummed.
In short, I'm down for now, but I'm not out. There's a long road still to travel.
Gotta Strive,
Jon
Instead, me and my family were all hit with varying degrees of sickness. I thought I was going to be able to dodge it, as I am rarely sick, but it nailed me good. Long story short, my training was derailed big time - I missed 12 days straight with everything from a high fever, sinus infection and a lung infection.
This past week was my first back to training, and it felt like I was starting all over again. My muscles were sore from workouts that were very easy and relatively short. Its hard to digest, when just a few weeks ago, a 26km run would hardly phase the muscles, but now a 9km run left me sore the next day!
Anyways, as this week progressed it did get better. I am easing my way back into things, and it seems as though there is no sign of any more sickness (both for me and my family). That being said, there is no denying the effects of being sick. It is going to take some time to regain the fitness, and the kicker is that my first race is just 2 weeks away. At the end of the month I am doing the Around the Bay 30km run, and my goals for the race are certain to undergo a shift in light of the recent events. I will have to see how the next 12 days go, and then I'll assess where I'm at. There's not doubt that I will not be where I would have, if not for the sickness, but I will still use the race as a 'test' to show as a benchmark for where I'm at. On the positive side, this race was not an 'A' race for the season, so I am not crushed by the timing, though still bummed.
In short, I'm down for now, but I'm not out. There's a long road still to travel.
Gotta Strive,
Jon
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