Good Life Fitness Toronto Marathon
Toronto (Mel Lastman Square, North York to Queen’s Park)
Sunday, October 18, 2009
If there were ever perfect conditions for a full marathon Sunday, October 18th was definitely that day. It was sunny and cool between 2-6 degrees Celsius with 15 kph North winds. Let’s not forget that the majority of this race is southbound down Yonge St.
It was a good summer for marathon training as the cooler than usual weather allowed for quite vigorous training without too much worry of over-heating. My coach had me doing some pretty big mileage as I peaked out my max weeks at 150 kms. Let’s face it, if you won’t to maximize your speed in the marathon, you have to find your maximum sweet spot of weekly mileage to strengthen the legs and prepare them to be punished over the 42.2km distance. Well, I did that as well as the required, though sometimes crazy-sounding speedwork. The one that really stands out in my mind was: “Run for an hour easy ending at the track. Then do 8 x 1 mile at 10km pace with a 400m rest between each. Then finish with a 30 minute cooldown”. ???? Did I mention that I actually enjoy this? Well, maybe not so much during but I enjoy looking back on a workout afterwards, especially when I was successful in completing it. Let’s face it, not all are complete successes. Sometimes you have to pull the chute early and call it a night.
Well, fast-forward to the race day. It’s pretty chilly first thing as the direct sun is hidden by the tall buildings in North York. So the warm up is done while reasonably bundled up and then a layer is removed. I still have an old cotton long-sleeved t-shirt on and some old running pants. As it gets closer to start time I remove the rest of the layers. I try to wait as long as possible as I’m only wearing running shorts, a Running Free singlet, arm warmers, thin merino wool Sugoi gloves and a Running Free hat. The problem is there’s a 7-10 minute delay in starting the race so all of us become cold quite quickly. I’m chatting briefly with fellow RF team mate Anthony Davey about the race as well as the season-to-date. We wish each other well and finally the starters gun goes.
The race starts off to plan and I’m discipl
ined about not getting caught up in over-pacing for the first half. Anyone who’s done that knows how messy the second half can be when using this strategy (or lack of strategy). In speaking with my coach on the Friday, we decided I should aim for a 2:57 finish time. This means going throught the first half in 1:28:30 (or somewhere in thereabout) and running 5km splits of around 21 minutes. I’m doing well at sticking with my split times and I go through the first half in 1:28:33, right where I want to be. This strategy serves me well as I’m feeling great and don’t feel like I’ve been pushing at all which makes me really happy.
I meet up with my coach around 24km where he runs with me for a couple hundred metres to see how I’m feeling. I think he’s surprised that I’m answering him in full sentences and am actually conversational with him. He tells me I look strong and that a lot of the runners in front of me are starting to tighten up. This confidence boost will come in handy later on.
At around 30km, I decide that the 4:12 pace I have been doing is not feeling tough enough. I feel that since this is a race I should be hurting more so I drop the pace down to 3:58 /km for the next 4kms. In doing this, I pass a quite a few people and this makes me feel even better. I decide to keep going this pace for as long as I can. At 37km I come upon the lead female who I had run with earlier in the race but she picked up the pace at 14km and left me behind. I know that the most painful part of the race is still yet to come. Of course, that would be the 3.2km uphill climb to finish the race and let us not forget the 15kph North wind. Unlike Scotia 3 weeks earlier, this race goes all up the to Queen’s Park where you also have to round most of the circle.
So I’m now at 39km and still pushing pace. In case you’re wondering, my desire at 30km to feel pain from this race has now been answered in spades! If you’ve never run this race before, as I hadn’t, let’s just say that when you go from York onto University there’s a sharp corner that also happens to feel almost straight up! As I was approaching this I was also passing someone. I figured I’d only push for a short bit after and then ease back and coast into the finish knowing that my goal time would be more than easily met. Unfortunately for me, when I looked over my shoulder I saw I guy I had passed back around the 32 or 33km point who was about 2-300 metres behind and closing. Oh well, so much for coasting in. So for the next 3km I felt my quads scream a bit. Another thing I found out about this race is that you can’t see the finish at all until about 50 to 100 metres left. I just kept going until I saw the 42km marker. Then I kicked it into high gear as I hadn’t opened any additional gap on the guy behind me and wasn’t about to be passed in the finishing stretch.
I broke the line at 2:56:09 and was so happy that I lept up in the air and pointed at the clock. My time was good for 20th overall and I had finally achieved the elusive sub-3 hour marathon and did it convincingly. This also marked a 12 and a half minute personal best. I guess all those lonely miles finally paid off! On to new goals. Anthony Davey also had a PB as did Derek Virgo (also of Team RF). Their respective finishes were 2:52:55 in 17th overall and 3:16:41 in 134th overall. Well done boys!
To anyone considering this race, I recommend it. It’s a really good course and I found it wasn’t too hard on the body or too boring. So give it a go especially now that you know that, “Mikey likes it!”
