Whoohoo – did not hit my personal best (although if you back calculate from the 13.4 miles my Garmin showed for the race I was pretty damned close) but was at least 6 minutes faster than my time for the WPS Half Marathon back in May! Nice.
Weather was fantastic for the race – felt cool at the start line but it got warmer quickly but never too hot – fantastic sunny day for a strong run.
Race seemed pretty well organized – considering their size I was surprised to see there were pace bunnies but they had them which was very good.
The race was scheduled to have the half marathoners and the 10k runners start out at the same time but they made a last minute decision to delay the 10k start by 15 minutes – good for the halfers but I could understand if any of the 10k runners were upset. Because of that change though the line up at the starting line was pretty sparse and it was easy to get out and move pretty quickly.
I did start out too fast but I had a fair bit of nervous energy that I wanted to take advantage of before I settled down into a more normal pace. Because of that I spent the first 5+ miles ahead of the 1:45 pace bunny before those folks caught me up and passed – I was kind of expecting that so it didn’t bug me at all as by that time I was at a good solid pace I could maintain for quite some time.
I continued to push pretty hard until the 1 hour mark to make sure I hit over 7.5 miles in that hour and I did – Garmin showed 7.55. After that I settled in and continued to push to maintain over a 7 mph pace.
It was interesting to run into the 10k runners along part of the course but things were spread out enough that it wasn’t an issue and the volunteers / course marshals were doing a fantastic job directing runners to their correct route (they had highly visible coloured duct tape on each racing bib that told them which race the runners were in). I had concerns going into the race but in the end they were unfounded thanks to the volunteers.
The volunteers at the water / Gatorade stops were really good as well – at some of the locations where there were runners coming from 2 directions they were running out to make sure they got runners going both ways – excellent job folks!!
One thing I found to be a bit of a problem was the lack of mile markers – if you were watching you could see KM markers painted on the road but nothing in miles that I saw. Now Canada is metric but I have always done my training in miles for a variety of reasons and I run with my Garmin in miles as well – now my Garmin said 13.4 miles at the end so it was a bit off of the official distance / markers but being in miles I didn’t realize that – it made the last mile and a half a little tough as I tried to figure out my pacing. This isn’t really a complaint about the race as the site indicated that there would be km markers and some mile ones but making them more visible would be nice.
Now I mentioned earlier that the 1:45 pace bunny passed me as expected and it didn’t bother me but what did bother me was the 1:50 pace bunny passing me around mile 10 and disappearing – I finished in under 1:50 and he had to have been 2-3 minutes or more faster than me at the end. I understand that the pace bunnies have a tough job to do and I appreciate the work that they do and the fact that they volunteer to do what they do but it is a bit disheartening to have them blast past you when you are on track to finish around when the time they are marked for – you start to question your pacing and your plan – not something you want to have happen about 3/4 of the way through the race.
It was nice to be able to push at the end and I got near 10 mph for the last 0.1 miles or so – felt good to finish strong. At the end there was another runner that was just ahead of me that gave me a very good lesson in always running your own race and not trying to compete with those around you. I will write up that story in another post.
Finished up – got my medal (not particularly flashy) – got a bottle of water (seriously sponsored by a funeral home and cemetery…no seriously) and did the 3 minute walk to my vehicle and headed home. I didn’t stop to check out their massage tent or after snacks as I just wanted to get home and have a shower.
All in all a good race – well organized from what I could tell and I was able to push strong. If I wasn’t carrying an extra 4-5 pounds of beer weight from the past week or so I probably could have been 2-3 minutes faster and come damned close to my personal best. In the end – I learned a few things and have some solid confidence to really push the training and the weight loss over the next 3 weeks for the Rotary Club half marathon coming up on the 22nd.
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