Date: Sunday July 11th, 2010
Event: Acura 10 Miler, part of the Canada Running Series
Distance: 10 miles (16.1km)
When I signed up for this race I didn’t realize that it was going to be one of the busiest weeks / weekends of the summer for me. That realization sunk in early last week and brought back rather unpleasant memories of the Welland half a couple of weeks ago as I had had the week from hell leading up to that race. I did my best to eat well and get lots of rest but I was a little concerned, especially since my legs had been suffering a lot since Welland. I finally went for a massage on the Wednesday before the race and that helped a lot. I had 2 late (ish) nights on the Thursday (a baby shower that went past 10:00 pm!) and on the Friday (Metric at the Amphitheatre where I stood for the entire show) but I slept well both nights. My sister crashed at our place on Friday night and as per usual, instead of getting our butts in gear and out the door (she had a 23km run to do I had a 1o km run to do) we lounged around on the couch and watched the Tour. It was 1:00 pm by the time we went out for our runs. BIG MISTAKE. My 10km run, even at the really easy pace I was running, felt like I had run about 20km by the time I finished. It was so hot out. After my sister left, my niece and my husband returned from the baseball game and it was out to a local burger joint for dinner. Not the most ideal pre-race food but that’s what our niece wanted so that’s what we had. Off to bed I went at about 10:00 pm only to have the worst sleep possible. I slept for about 3 hours and then proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour until my alarm went off at 5:45 am. Ugh. I was obviously a lot more apprehensive about this race than I realized.
We got down to the race at about 7:45 so I had time to wander around, do a warm up and relax a bit. It was starting to get quite warm which I wasn’t too happy about but, nothing I could do about that except give it my best shot. We had a bunch of friends racing and we managed to meet up with them which was great. I wandered over to my starting corral with another friend of mine and we chatted until the race started. My goal was to run at least a 1:30 if not faster, other than that I didn’t really have much of a game plan. The gun went off and I went out at a reasonably comfortable pace for the first km or so. At least I thought it was conservative. When I hit the 3km mark at 15:00 minutes I realized that perhaps it wasn’t so conservative so I thought I’d better back it off because I would totally implode if I kept that pace up. Once we got into Tommy Thompson park, I started to struggle. It was hot and there was very little breeze which made the air very heavy. I hit the 5km mark in just under 27 minutes. Big time slow down but, I was running at a pace that was manageable for me in that heat. I was just toeing the line between comfortable and uncomfortable so that’s where I decided to stay. I grabbed fluid at every aid station and dumped water on my head as well. That helped to cool me down a lot and after a while I didn’t really notice the heat. I stopped twice over the course of the race to have a gel and some water by the time I took my third gel, I finally realized that it might be more time efficient if I actually ate the gel just BEFORE I got to the aid station so I didn’t have to stop, all I had to do was grab a water and wash it down. This is what happens when you take a year off racing – you forget all the little things you used to do.
I hit the 8km mark at exactly 42:30. I was thrilled because that meant I would actually finish in 1:25 if I could manage to keep that pace up. Knowing that put a bit of a extra spring in my step for a bit and when I looked at my watch and saw that my heart rate was 181, I thought whoa I better slow down. So I backed it off a bit again. I don’t recall what my time was through 10km but I do remember looking at my watch as I went through 11 km and it was 58:30. Once again, I was thrilled. I’ve run a couple of 11km race pace runs this year and none of them have been under an hour so I was super happy. I was starting to push hard at this point, mainly from the adrenaline of seeing my km splits. At about the 14km mark I started to pass people that had passed me earlier on in the race. At 15km I thought ok, this is it, I’m going to push as hard as I can. My legs had been sore earlier on but the pain seemed to disappear as I ran towards the finish line. My lungs felt like they were going to burst. I usually have tunnel vision towards the end of a race but I actually saw my husband and my niece and my friend (and fellow TRF athlete) Linnea just before I turned on the finishing chute. I saw the 16km marker and thought, “what the hell?” and then remembered that it was 16.1km. Gah! I hit 16km in just over 1:25 and crossed the finish line 30+ seconds later.
My chip time was 1:25:37. I averaged 5:19 km’s which is my goal marathon pace for Scotia so I was pretty happy. I was also pretty happy to find out that I was 18th out of 107 women in my age group. Not bad for having taken a year + off!! I’m hoping to get another race in sometime in August so stay tuned for that.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a Canada Running Series event and nothing much has changed – they still put on a top notch race. Very well organized. The race site was fantastic. The Distillery is an amazing area and the course was great. My only suggestion would be to start the race maybe a half hour to an hour earlier to avoid the heat. Team RF was once again very well represented, especially with Leslie Sexton taking first overall in the women’s race.
Congrats to all the Team RF athletes that participated!
