Half Marathon Race Day

We got downtown early, and even though it was still quite cool out it felt like it was likely to be a warm day. I made a last minute change from a tech shirt into a singlet. I found out last week that a friend was running, and aiming for the same pace, so we decided to start together. We made it really clear though that if either of us wanted to go faster, we’d just take off. My goal for the half marathon was to do it in under 2 hours, and I was hoping that hitting a 5:30/km pace would be a good pace. I was pretty nervous yesterday and today about whether I could hold that pace for the whole race though. I wanted to do the 1st 2 km at a 5:40 pace, for a bit of time to warm up, and since I knew that the crowds would make it hard to set my own pace. Before the race they announced that there were 10,000 runners starting the half marathon today.

We got a pretty good start, and didn’t really have to do any weaving through traffic at all. We saw someone fall just a bit behind us after about 500m, and I slowed almost to a stop, but people seemed to be doing a good job of getting her back up. Yesterday someone almost got trampled in the 5k, and I was pretty upset to see nobody slowing at all to help. It only took us about 3 minutes to settle into a good pace. I knew we were going a bit fast, and sure enough the first km took 5:18. OK I said, we’re going too fast, we should ease up a bit. The second km took 4:56. At that point I decided that I was feeling really good, and would see what I could manage, but that I absolutely needed to ease up a bit and focus on effort level. So we kept knocking off km’s, running at around a 5:15/km pace.

The run through Gatineau went pretty well. There was almost no crowd support there, just the occasional curious looking onlooker. But as we came back over the bridge to Ottawa around the 9km mark the crowds picked up. Our gun time at the 9 km mark was 49:00. From that point on there were people cheering all the way in. There’s a long stretch along the canal from around km 10-15, and we saw several people down getting medical help along here. It was really feeling hot, the sun was just blazing. Then we finally went up to a bridge to cross the canal, and I was sure I was going to make it. I kept feeling good, and we kept up the pace, and were even going a few seconds per km faster from kms 10-16.


Across the canal we picked up the 1:50 pace bunny, and were around her and her group a lot at that point. At km 17 I picked up the pace a bit more, almost losing my friend in the process. Km 17 took 4:53, but after that I slowed back to about a 5:05/km pace and there was my friend at my elbow again. Someone in the crowd gave me a freezie here, it looked so inviting but when I tried to eat it I thought it was coming back up. Someone else gave me an ice cold water bottle – much better. With 3 km left to go, I started to feel worn down. My legs really wanted to stop. The 1:50 pace bunny was telling her people they were right on target, and to go ahead, but looked to be seriously hurting. My Garmin told me that the 1:50 pace bunny had little chance of finishing in 1:50. At the 19 km mark, we left the 1:50 bunny behind, but I was starting to seriously hurt. I tried reminding myself of the 2 km last stretch of one of my runs, but that didn’t help at ALL. But I was hanging in and holding the pace, km 19-20 took 5:09. The rest is a blur, I was dead on my feet, but wasn’t willing to stop. The last km seemed to take forever, but I was convinced that slowing down would only prolong it at this point, and I was NOT willing to slow down. With 500 meters to go I was having a hard time imagining running that far! The crowd was great here though, the bleachers were packed with people. My friend gave a burst of speed in the last 50 m, and finished 2 seconds in front of me. My final chip time was 1:51:11. I honestly feel like that is as fast as I could possibly have run it, there was barely enough left in the tank to get me to the recovery area.

My final pace (Garmin) was 5:11/km or 8:20/mile.

53 Commandments

I really like the following, from this link:

The 53 Runner’s Commandments
by Joe Kelly

1. Don’t be a whiner. Nobody likes a whiner, not even other whiners.
2. Walking out the door is often the toughest part of a run.
3. Don’t make running your life. Make it part of your life.
4. During group training runs, don’t let anyone run alone.
5. Keep promises, especially ones made to yourself.
6. When doing group runs, start on time no matter who’s missing.
7. The faster you are the less you should talk about your times.
8. Keep a quarter in your pocket. One day you’ll need to call for a ride.
9. Don’t compare yourself to other runners.
10. All runners are equal, some are just faster than others.
11. Keep in mind that the later in the day it gets, the more likely it is that you won’t run.
12. For a change of pace, get driven out and then run back.
13. If it was easy, everybody would be a runner.
14. When standing in starting lines, remind yourself how fortunate you are to be there.
15. Getting out of shape is much easier than getting into shape.
16. A bad day of running still beats a good day at work.
17. Talk like a runner. “Singlets” are worn on warm days. “Tank tops” are worn to the beach.
18. Don’t talk about your running injuries. People don’t want to hear about your sore knee or black toe.
19. Don’t always run alone.
20. Don’t always run with people.
21. Approach running as if the quality of your life depended on it.
22. No matter how slow you run it is still faster than someone sitting on a couch.
23. Keep in mind that the harder you run during training, the luckier you’ll get during racing.
24. Races aren’t just for those who can run fast.
25. There are no shortcuts to running excellence.
26. The best runs sometimes come on days when you didn’t feel like running.
27. Be modest after a race, especially if you have reason to brag.
28. If you say, “Let’s run this race together,” then you must stay with that person no matter how slow.
29. Think twice before agreeing to run with someone during a race.
30. There is nothing boring about running. There are, however, boring people who run.
31. Look at hills as opportunities to pass people.
32. Distance running is like cod liver oil. At first it makes you feel awful, then it makes you feel better.
33. Never throw away the instructions to your running watch.
34. Don’t try to outrun dogs.
35. Don’t trust runners who show up at races claiming to be tired, out of shape, or not feeling well.
36. Don’t wait for perfect weather. If you do, you won’t run very often.
37. When tempted to stop being a runner, make a list of the reasons you started.
38. Never run alongside very old or very young racers. They get all of the applause.
39. Without goals, training has no purpose.
40. During training runs, let the slowest runner in the group set the pace.
41. The first year in a new age group offers the best opportunity for trophies.
42. Go for broke, but be prepared to be broken.
43. Spend more time running on the roads than sitting on the couch.
44. Make progress in your training, but progress at your own rate.
45. “Winning” means different things to different people.
46. Unless you make your living as a runner, don’t take running too seriously.
47. Runners who never fail are runners who never try anything great.
48. Never tell a runner that he or she doesn’t look good in tights.
49. Never confuse the Ben-Gay tube with the toothpaste tube.
50. Never apologize for doing the best you can.
51. Preventing running injuries is easier than curing them.
52. Running is simple. Don’t make it complicated.
53. Running is always enjoyable. Sometimes, though, the joy doesn’t come until the end of the run.

Tuesday Run

I ran 6 km yesterday, 3 km at an 8 year old pace, 3 km at around 6:00/km. It was a pretty easy run, but I did feel like I was working a bit harder than I expected to. I'll be doing a 4 km run tomorrow, as my last run before race day.

They've improved the forecast for Sunday, getting rid of the showers. The weather forecast now calls for a high of 23 and partly cloudy.

Carbo loading begins today.

I came across a couple of good links on nutrition & carbo loading:

Carbo-Loading

Endurance Secrets

10k + 2k

I did another 10 km run yesterday at an easy pace, then another 2 km with Krash. Everything felt good. The combination of the Thorlo socks and the Mizuno's seems to have solved my fit problem, so I think I should be ready for race day now. I'm planning on a couple more short runs this week (5-8 km) just to keep my muscles moving.

The forecast for Sunday is looking pretty good: A high of 22 deg C, and occasional scattered showers.

Two More

Two more done.

I did an easy 8 km run on Tuesday, and a 7.7 km fartlek run today. For today's run I did 4x 500 m intervals in around 2:20 each during the run. The schedule had me doing a short tempo section, but I decided to have some fun and put in just a little bit of speedwork. This seemed like a good time to put in a bit of fast paced running, since my next 3 runs will all be at a slow pace.

I'm down to 10 days till raceday, so I don't think any training I do now will really increase my conditioning. I'm mostly just trying to keep the rust off.

20 km !!!!!

I did my 1st 20k+ run yesterday: 20.2 km in just under 1:59. Its two weeks to race day, so that was my last long run. This was the 4th run I've done over 10 miles, and by far the easiest. I was really tired at the end of all the others, this time I actually felt really good at the end. I'm really happy about that, I was waiting for the long runs to start feeling easier. I did have some tightness around my left heel, that was pretty constant up until the 13 km mark, then eased up. I went out the Trans-Canada trail, that was a really nice relaxed place to run. Very nice to have no streetsweepers to avoid. I kicked up the speed a bit after around the 15 km mark, but I did keep the speed under 5:40/km.

Thorlo socks combined with my Mizuno's seem to be giving me a pretty good fit plus I like the extra padding of the Thorlo's. I was kicking around whether to wear my Mizuno's on race day. I've pretty much settled on them now, since they are noticeably lighter than my other shoes.

My legs are a bit tired today, but nothing is out-of-the-ordinary painful. I'm a bit surprised that I didn't have any pain at all in my left quad, either yesterday or today.

I'm moving into a bit of a recovery mode now, dropping my mileage down a bit this week from last.

Race pace preview

I ran 12 km at a 5:29/km (8:50/mile) pace after work yesterday. I've been wondering about whether doing the half marathon in under 2 hours was realistic, I figured that the best way to get a handle on it would be to run about half the distance at the pace I'd need to run and then see how I felt at the end.

I did my Mansfield route. I ran the 1st 2 km a bit slower (5:40) as I want to do in the race, then settled into my pace for the rest of it. The last 10 km was actually at a 5:25/km pace, so I could see my average pace coming down as I ran. It felt good, it was a hard workout but I wasn't destroyed at the end. I think I should be able to hold that pace through the race, but I guess I won't be feeling great at the end.

In hindsight, I should have put that run in on Tuesday, to have a bit more rest time before Sunday's long run.

Foggy Morning

Interesting running conditions this morning. I was on the road by 6, and it was 1 degree C and foggy. There was a little dusting of snow, and everything was wet from last nights rain. I started off on the roads heading north. As I came around the first corner I saw that the sun was just up and was an amazing shade of orange. It was really spectacular, it actually made me (almost) happy to be outside rather than comfortably sleeping.

I headed west on the trans-Canada trail, and went a couple of km farther than I have before. This part was great, the trail goes through a swamp, with a pond that had about a dozen Canadian Geese in it. There was steam rising off the water, and it was totally calm with the trees & geese reflected in the water. Let the record show that this was very close to as nice as being in bed would have been.

The total distance was 12 km, including 5 km at a 5:18/km tempo pace. The total run took me 1:11.


Final note: Another of those pesky street sweepers passed me right near the end, I really think they might be after me.