Category Archives: Running

Fitness Friday: 2018 Toronto Half Marathon Race Recap

May 11, 2018Fitness, Runninghalf marathon, Race, RacingChelle

2018 Toronto Half Marathon

In a burst of annoyance with myself over a stupid soccer injury, I decided to sign up for the Toronto Half Marathon. At the time of me signing up it was March and I was like “oh please May is AGES away – I’ve got plenty of time to train!”. When I finally sat down and did my workback training schedule, I came to the horrifying realization that I had less than 6 weeks to train for this half marathon AND I had a shoulder injury. Hooo boy.

I basically dove headfirst into training after my last race (the Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K) and told myself there was no room for me to be lazy this time. Aside from the first half marathon I ever did (in the Czech Republic – read all about that race here!), I’ve been basically lazy AF about my half marathon training. I’ll train for one week, off for another, repeat. And while it WORKS, and I CAN run a half marathon without having to put much effort into training, the fact remains that I haven’t really sped up or gotten any better over the years I’ve been doing these races. My half marathon times range from two hours and seven minutes to two hours and eight minutes, without very much variation. And honestly, it’s the result of lazy training. Fundamentally you’re supposed to be running something like 5 times a week, but in the past I’ve generally relied on running twice a week. It doesn’t help that I play soccer, weightlift and recently went back to figure skating, so there’s a lot on my plate physically which gets in the way of training. That being said, all of these activities do HELP in some way, so they’re not totally detrimental.

The time around I was actually scared. I had a shoulder injury (that was healing well mind you) and I had very little time to get prepped for this race. So, for the first time in a long time, on top of all of my other activities, I committed to running three days a week, with the shortest single run in a week being around 9 kilometers. I was clocking around 35-40 kilometers a week and that’s easily the most I have ever done to train for a half. I love running long distance, but that much running training is super boring to me. However, the fear of failure kept me going and I completed all of the pre-race runs I set out to do… with one exception. I skipped my last long run the week before the race (a 16k run) and turned my usual one week taper (where you reduce your distance dramatically before a race in order to rest your muscles ) into a two week one. I had read in the past that a two week taper is sometimes better and I figured… let’s give it a shot.

2018 Toronto Half Marathon - close to the end! — 2018 Toronto Half Marathon – close to the end!

I don’t know if it was all the consistent training, or the two week taper, or the extra physical activity I do… but I absolutely nailed this race. Every single time I looked down at my Garmin to check my pace I was in shock. I kept asking myself how was I running this fast? I was putting out a pace that I generally have during a 10K race and I wasn’t even tired. I wasn’t out of breath and I felt AMAZING. I kept expecting to hit a wall but 5k passed without issue, then 10k (I actually felt the best around 10k), then 15k…. and I still felt indestructible.

There was a brief moment around 18 kilometers where I looked at my Garmin and was like “wait a second, you’re not only going to absolutely MURDER your previous personal record, but you might actually be super close to two hours!”. It’s been my dream to get under two hours, but I’ve honestly never really had much motivation to work on speed training.

In the end, I tore through the finish line with a time of 2:01:20. This finish time was an incredible 5:49 minutes FASTER than my previous personal best which is absolutely unheard of for me. I usually go up and down by about a minute, never before I have I chopped off so much time in a race! While I must concede that a lot of the race had downhill segments, I have to say that there were some horrific uphills that sucked the absolute life out of you, so I really feel like they counterbalanced themselves. Plus, I not only beat the average female completion time (which was somewhere around 2:14:00) but I also beat the MALE average completion time (2:02:03)!

So if you couldn’t tell… I am over the moon about this race!

Race Results

Finish Time: 2:01:20
Pace: 5:45 per kilometer
Overall placement: 1355/2956
Age group placement (Female 30-39 years): 67/212
Gender placement (F): 459/1392

Fitness Friday: 2018 Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K

March 30, 2018Fitness, RunningChelle

2018 Achilles St. Patrick's Day Race Bib + Medal — 2018 Achilles St. Patrick’s Day Race Bib + Medal

I feel like I say this every time I do a race… but I was really not prepared for this one. And if I always think I’m unprepared, then this had to be the race I was definitely the MOST unprepared for due to a combination of things.

About to take off for the 2018 Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K! — About to take off for the 2018 Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K!

I had started semi-training for the St. Patrick’s Day 5K race back in January once we got back from LA, but it was kind of half-hearted. I wasn’t doing sprints (because I hate them) and I was relying on doing tempo runs to help me gain my speed back. I also hadn’t been running outside – instead opting to use the track at the gym, which meant my lungs were not conditioned to the colder temperatures outside. Things took a steep nosedive in March when I got sick (just some random cold) and then I seriously injured my shoulder at a soccer game. The pain was so bad that I stopped ALL exercise for 2-3 weeks. So I wasn’t running, I wasn’t weightlifting, and this race was coming up on me quickly.

This shoulder right here... this one's injured! — This shoulder right here… this one’s injured!

Since I love St. Patrick’s Day and this is my favourite race of the entire year in Toronto, I decided I was going to run it despite the pain I was feeling in my right shoulder. I did a 1K practice run the day before the race and determined I could sustain the impact of my feet hitting the pavement repeatedly without causing too much damage to my shoulder (unreal to think that the impact of my feet was so painful to my shoulder, but it was).

Unfortunately, the way the race worked out this year, the Achilles St. Patrick’s Day race was the AFTER St. Patrick’s Day (please, guys… don’t ever do that again – make it the weekend before!). I wasn’t hungover, but I had certainly curtailed my usual St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans the night before so I wouldn’t feel terrible the morning of the race (or, as good as I could given my injury).

Because I was injured, I treated this race so differently than I normally would. I figured I wouldn’t do very well, so I slept without constantly waking myself up from nerves (which is usually an issue for me the night before a race) so – for once – I actually got a good night’s sleep.

Once the race started, I turned on my trackers and told myself to go at a comfortable pace, but not to overstress myself. I’m someone who is constantly checking their Garmin to make sure I’m on pace for the time I want to finish in, so it felt very odd to just turn it on and leave it be. I wasn’t in too much pain so I just race at a comfortable pace where I wasn’t gasping for breath. I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be beating my personal best time in a 5K (which I did the year prior in this race with a time of 26:06), and figured I’d come in somewhere around the 28-29 minute mark.

Imagine my surprise when I rounded the last corner of this race and checked my Garmin to see what time I was at and saw that I was around 23 minutes. What??? That’s AMAZING! There was about 700 meters left, which meant I could definitely come in under 27 minutes if I just stayed on pace/sped up a bit. I was so shocked! I had spent the whole race ignoring pacing and just ran at a comfortable speed, and somehow, despite the pain I was feeling and my intense lack of training, I was on target for staying in my typical 26 minute racing zone!

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I crossed the finish line with a time of 26:41, and I have never been that excited to have a high 26 minute finish time. I always want to beat my best, but given the circumstances of this particular race, I was over the moon with my finish time! I don’t know how I managed to stay under 27 minutes, because I know I’ve completed some races in this time frame and felt like I put my all into it, but this time I definitely felt like I still had extra gas to spare once I’d finished the race. I’d held back because of my injury, but I know that means that next time I’ll be even better.

2018 Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K Race - Course Map — 2018 Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K Race – Course Map

And just to reiterate, even though I’ve chatted about this race before – this is one of my favourites to do in Toronto. I love the St. Patrick’s Day theme, I love that they welcome you into Steamwhistle Brewery afterwards and give you some beer and chili, I love the atmosphere, I love the course and I LOVE that it’s one of the cooler temperature races where I can breathe easily around 0 degrees. Hands down a fantastic race to run in Toronto!

Race Results

Finish Time: 26:41
Pace: 5:20 per kilometer
Overall placement: 309/1122
Age group placement (Female 30-39 years): 43/186
Gender placement (F): 108/619

Fitness Friday: Miles of Music 5K

January 26, 2018Fitness, Running5K, Race, RacingChelle

As I always do whenever I’m on vacation in another city or country, I found myself a race to run in Los Angeles! The only race that was available during the weekend I was there was the Miles of Music 5K in Studio City.

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The course itself was pretty interesting as it took place on CBS Studios’ Backlot. We were running in amongst set pieces that were houses and stores ranging from a sprawling large house, to downtown New York City locales. It was a smaller race too, which was nice since it meant the packs of people weren’t too difficult to get around.

But honestly… all of the interesting points end there as this was a truly terrible race that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

It started off poorly by them postponing the start time because people were still registering for the race at 8 am (??????). It wasn’t a long postponement, but you can see by my start time below it was 15 minutes after the expected 8 am start.

There were a few uphills which pissed me off, but that’s neither here nor there because the worst part?

This race wasn’t a 5K. It was barely even a 4K.

?????

Miles of Music 5K - Course Map — Miles of Music 5K – Course Map

My Garmin and my phone disagreed on the distance. My Garmin said 3.92 kilometers and my phone said 4.2 kilometers. I asked some other people once I’d finished what they’d recorded for distance and they told me 2.5 miles (which is 4.02k). I originally thought I’d run around the loop wrong (it was a double loop around the course above), but we were told to do it twice and the fact that my distance lined up with other participants indicates to me that it was just measured completely improperly.

Like what the hell happened you guys? It’s a 5K race – that is part of the title of your race – and you came up so short? Did no one measure this a few times? It’s not like you were shy 200 meters… you were missing an ENTIRE KILOMETER. People don’t like signing up for a race only to discover it’s not what they paid for. I’ve tweeted at them and e-mailed them asking what happened, but so far… no response.

I had originally thought I’d be putting out a personal best, but looking at my pace and knowing the course, I know now that there’s no chance I would’ve done so, so I guess I can’t be sad about that. But like… they e-mailed me my time results and it says I finished the race in 21:54. If that were actually accurate I’d be over the damn moon because it would mean I’ve shaved over 4 minutes off my personal best (which is an insane feat). But it’s not a real time because the distance wasn’t right.

What a raging disappointment. Would not recommend this race at all. I’d go so far to say that it’s a waste of time too because I run further in my training runs than I did for this race.

I’ll post my race stats below since I always do, but keep in mind this is all based on a 4K distance.

Race Results

Finish Time: 21:54
Pace: 5:35 per kilometer
Overall placement: 76/471
Age group placement (Female 31-40 years): 12/69
Gender placement (F): 29/277

Fitness Friday: 2017 Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon

November 3, 2017Fitness, Runninghalf marathon, Race, Racing, RunningChelle

Phew! Two marathons in a month’s time span meant I wasn’t really sure how my body was going to react to the overexertion, but it did make for easy enough training! Instead of training two sets of half marathons routines throughout the year as I normally do, I managed to squash it all into one. I ran the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival back in September, and the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon event was only five weeks after that race!

My husband taking photos from the VIP tent.

I like the Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon course because it’s one of the flatter ones out there. The only real uphills are at the start (which is fine, because you’re only really getting started then) and then the last kilometer or so of the race is a very slight incline. Of course, since it’s at the end of the race, it feels like one hell of an uphill battle. However, this year it didn’t feel as strenuous, and I think a large part of that is because I just run the quite hilly half marathon in Sydney, Australia.

As I’ve done in the past, I opt to do the Scotiabank Charity Challenge for this race. It’s kind of a unique structure for the race. What you do is pay the entry fee, but then sign up to raise funds for a charity. The goal is to raise a minimum of $200 for your charity of choice (this year I chose the YMCA of Toronto) and then you’ll get your race fee refunded. My goal is always to raise about $500 since I feel like that’s a decent amount of cash for charity, but it also gives me and two guests access to the Scotiabank VIP tent where my guests can watch me finish up the race. Not only is the VIP quite large and roomy with plenty of chairs and tents set up in case it rains, but it’s also fully catered. There’s water, juice, Gatorade, muffins and *amazing* grilled salads that you can grab to eat. In the end, I raised $610 and I was so, SO happy with that as I think it’s the most I’ve raised so far.

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Anyway, back to the race! Since I’ve done this race a few times in the past (see my race recaps from 2014 and 2015), I don’t have a whole lot to add about the course. The volunteers are always helpful, the kilometer markers are huge and easy to read and there’s gel packs provided around kilometer 12 in case you didn’t bring your own.

The only thing that was weird this year was that I read a number of spectator signs that were actually pretty condescending/petty. And honestly, I was really shocked. The spectator signs are one of the things that really keeps me motivated to keep running all 21.1 kilometers and when you see one that’s just kind of passive aggressive, it really leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. I saw one sign say “You’re the slowest runner yet”, and I don’t know if that was supposed to motivate me to run faster, but this person was placed within the first two kilometers of the race when everyone is feeling pretty fresh and pumped up. I wasn’t impressed. There was another one that was actually worse than that, and I wish I could remember what it said, but it left me with such a sour taste in my mouth. Race signs are for encouragement, or tongue in cheek jokes, don’t be condescending to runners – they’re out there busting their ass while you’re standing on the sidewalk. For the most part, the signs were lovely and encouraging, so it’s not to say that every sign was bad, it’s just that these ones really made me go “wtf were you thinking when you wrote that?”

ANYWAY, one thing Scotiabank changed up this year was add in a huge screen in the last three kilometers with video clips of people actively encouraging runners to keep pushing. It feels slightly dumb to say it because it’s not like I recognized anyone in those clips, but they were really effective at keeping my motivation up. Half marathons really break me down emotionally, and any kind of positive reinforcement to keep on moving is HUGE!

Of course, there was another really emotional piece along this race course as well. If you’re involved in Toronto’s running scene in some capacity, you may be aware of Ed Whitlock. To keep it brief, he was a consistent runner but he died this past year at the age of 86. The year before he died, he ran that Scotiabank Waterfront MARATHON in three hours and 56 minutes! He is officially the oldest person to run a marathon under four hours. And when he was in his 70s? He ran a marathon in under three hours! It’s just absolutely mindboggling to think of that kind of pace at those ages. I can’t even do those kinds of paces and I’m only 34!

Sadly, Ed died in March of this year to prostate cancer. He is fondly remembered by the running community – so much so that they put a pace bunny up with his marathon time at age 85 (3:56:34) and I saw that pace bunny constantly along my route. Of course, they split off to go do the full marathon, but seeing that pace bunny with the “ED WHITLOCK 3:56:34” sign was extremely motivational. It was a good reminder that even when I’m frigging tired and don’t want to keep running, someone more than double my age was pushing harder and going faster. I hope they keep that pace bunny up for years to come – it was a really, really lovely touch.

2017 Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon - course map — 2017 Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon – course map

So in the end, I was faster than my Sydney Running Festival pace, but not by a whole lot. I was slower than my fastest race, but not by a whole lot. My half marathons vary between 2:07 and 2:09 and for that I’m happy since it’s a pretty consistent pace. I say this every time, but I would like to get under the two hour mark… but I really don’t think I have it in me to do the training necessary to get there. Ah well, maybe one day I’ll have the motivation!

Race Results

Finish Time: 2:08:51
Pace: 6:06 per kilometer
Overall placement: 4966/9806
Age group placement (Female 30-34 years): 311/769
Gender placement (F): 1893/5006

Fitness Friday: Blackmores Sydney Running Festival Half Marathon

September 29, 2017Fitness, Runninghalf marathon, Race, Racing, Run, RunningChelle

Finally! I hadn’t run a half marathon all year and I was starting to feel really weird about it. I like to run two a year, but this was my first one of 2017, which feels weird given that it’s in September. I usually like to space my half marathons out a bit more so I spend more time training overall.

But anyway, I was equal parts excited and nervous about this race. Excited because I was going to be running in beautiful Sydney, Australia. We were going to run across the Harbour Bridge and see absolutely beautiful vistas of the city. But I was also nervous because this was my earliest race starting time to date. The race STARTED at 6 am – which meant I had to get up at 4 am (the grossest hour of the day) to eat breakfast so that I could properly digest everything before the race. And the other reason I was nervous was that once we got to Sydney, we discovered just how very much NOT FLAT the downtown area is. There are some seriously vicious uphills in Sydney and I was more than a bit horrified.

If you’ve been following me on Snapchat (snap is “muyourmind”), you’ll notice I tend to talk a lot more about fitness on there. But for those of you who don’t follow me: I was plagued with about a month of sickness after we moved into our new condo in August. Between unpacking, painting, and whatnot, my husband and I constantly had some kind of cold we kept passing back and forth to each other. It was so bad that I couldn’t work out for 4-5 weeks, which meant I was incredibly nervous about my physical capacity to finish this race. Once I finally got over the various sicknesses, I had only two weeks left to exercise before we left for the first leg of our trip which was in Bali. I knew I’d have zero chances of running the week we were in Bali (which is where we went before Australia) because even the nighttime temperature hovers around 27 degrees and my body and lungs just can’t handle that for running.

Thankfully, before I got sick I had been following my half marathon training plan to a T which saved me a lot of pain later on. Had I slacked on it, I would’ve been completely set up for failure. So I was able to utilize the two weeks before vacation really, really well. It meant doubling up on long runs during the week, but by the end of the two weeks I felt moderately comfortable that this was a race I may not do amazing in, but that I would at least be able to complete with my dignity intact. With this in mind, I was hoping to complete the race in about two hours and ten minutes.

Fast forward to race day. I got up at 4 am and ate my breakfast, and, miraculously, I didn’t feel vomitous. There’s something about getting up that early that usually makes me feel like I want to heave, but I didn’t have any of that this time. I ate my breakfast (granola and yogurt (or oatmeal) before a race – always), then went back to bed and sort of just rested for the next hour or so before I had to get up and out the door. The lovely city of Sydney has an absolutely subway system that was up and running by time I caught a train at 5:15 am from King’s Cross over to the race start zone at Milson’s Point. I went by myself since it really wasn’t necessary to get David out of bed just escort me to the start line. The only thing that was a bit poopy about that was that I had to wear nothing but what I was racing in to the starting zone. And given that this was a 6 am start time and Sydney was finishing up their winter season, it was very brisk 6 degrees when I left our AirBNB in Darlinghurst!

I got to the start zone about five minutes before the race started, which was PERFECT. We started off the race without kerfuffle (honestly, it was a pretty subdued start – I think because it was so freaking early.). The first part of the course forces us to run up an incline, loop around and then we get on the Harbour Bridge. I’m not generally one to take pictures during a race because it’s detrimental to keeping your race pace, but since I figured I wasn’t going to be busting out any kind of personal best this race, I wanted to document some of the neat things I saw on this race. And that shot of us running over the bridge was one of those moments. It was like “ohhh wowwwwww!” (Pictured above.)

Another one of those moments was this sadly blurry shot. We were running down an offramp (maybe an onramp?) that I think accessed Harbour Bridge. It was so freaking cool for all of us to be tunneling down this ramp together. I loved seing the rock walls on either side of us.

And of course how could I not take this photo? The sun had fully risen at this point and there’s the Sydney Opera House in the background. The green balloon ahead of me is the 2:10 pace bunny. Which is funny, because I had thought that I was ahead of her by this point!

The race course itself was one of the most interesting ones I’ve done to date. The course meandered through a lot of downtown Sydney and while there were a lot of switchbacks, it never felt awkward. That being said… there were a lot of inclines. The course avoided a lot of the bad ones I’d become aware of in the core, but they were still there and they were an energy sucker. That being said, I was putting out an insane pace for this race to start off with. For the first 10 kilometers or so I was pushing a pace of 5:50 per kilometer and I honestly thought “holy crap, I will actually nail a pb!”. I felt amazing – my body was happy to be running, I didn’t feel sick from being up so early and the temperature was cool which meant I could breathe easily.

Sidenote: this race had the best manned water stations I’ve ever seen. Each station had loads of volunteers (amazing, given the hour of day) and plenty to drink. I was able to guzzle water and non-branded “electrolyte drink” at every station. Some of them had jelly bean gels, and, even better for me, a few of them had GU gel packs. I had forgotten to pick up any gels for this race, so when I saw the gel packs around kilometer 12 I was elated. Even more amazing? They were actually chilled! If you’ve gone and downed a gel pack mid-race you know that they generally tend to be warm and gross by the time you eat them. (Usually because you’re carrying them on your body and they’ve warmed up, or they’ve been sitting in the sun for a while.) Not these gels! They were blissfully cooled which made choking them down so much easier (because, let’s get real – those gels aren’t exactly the most fun things to shove down your throat while you’re running).

Despite my excitement over myself race, around the 16th kilometer my left knee started to suffer. And it was weird because it came out of absolutely nowhere. In my training runs I hadn’t had any joint issues (but I also hadn’t been running this fast either nor doing these uphills) so I was really taken aback when it got so bad that just bending at the knee was problematic. I forced myself to start doing kickbacks with my legs in order to loosen up the knee joint, and it worked long enough for me to cross the finish line at a gallop (but dang if it wasn’t painful), but at this point my pace had slowed down so much that it made my previous quick pace irrelevant.

In the end, I crossed the finish line with a chip time of 2:09:21. Which is under the 2:10 I wanted! A personal best for me would’ve been under 2:07 or so, but given all of the circumstances that lead up to this race and how I felt towards the end of the race, I am EXTREMELY happy with this result!

Race Results

Finish Time: 2:09:21
Pace: 6:07 per kilometer
Overall placement: 4845/7219
Age group placement (Female 30-34 years): 33/539
Gender placement (F): 1888/3434