Tag Archives: half marathon

Fitness Friday: 2018 Brooklyn Half Marathon

November 9, 2018Fitness, Runninghalf marathon, Race, RacingChelle

I was on vacation in New York City last month, and, true to my nature, I found a race to run out in Brooklyn – the Brooklyn Marathon & Half Marathon! This race used to take place solely around Prospect Park (a location I’d actually run before while visiting my friend D several years back), but as of this year they’ve expanded the race outside the park down Ocean Parkway which runs straight south. Their goal is to expand the race and make it run through various Brooklyn neighbourhoods, but they need the race to grow in size before they can move forward with their plans. I, for one, was really happy not to be doing loops around Prospect Park as repeating a course 10 times over can be quite monotonous!

Anyway, backing up a little bit. I had trained adequately for this race and I felt pretty good. I think I had potentially over-hydrated the night before though because I was literally up every 45-60 minutes to pee during the night. No joke. I went to bed at midnight and peed at LEAST every hour until 5 am when I got up to eat breakfast (plain oatmeal with milk) two hours before the race start time. Oddly, I felt quite good despite extremely disrupted sleep (I generally do well with sleep interruptions, but 5-6 times in a five hour period is a LOT). Anyway, after eating, I snoozed for about another hour until I got up, got dressed and ordered myself an Uber out to the start zone. I was fairly scared I wasn’t going to make it to the start zone in time since I was staying with my friend in Manhattan and the Uber seemed to be running late, but thankfully we made it in time.

I started off this race like a bat out of hell. I was moving so, SO fast for about 10 kilometers or so and I couldn’t figure out WHY. Everything just felt good, you know? The race itself starts off with a short loop around part of Prospect Park and then goes straight, STRAIGHT down Ocean Parkway for what feels like ages. It wasn’t until we got to the switchback at the end of Ocean Parkway that I realized why I was moving so fast… up till that point, the whole race had been on a gradual decline so I was partially being propelled forwards by gravity. Oh noooooo! When I clued into this, I then realized the next problem: the rest of the race was about to be uphill. Not SEVERELY uphill, but enough to be quite draining over time.

Running through Prospect Park is fantastic – when we hit it again after our looooong loop down Ocean Parkway it was like a breath of fresh air and I felt *alive* again. That change in scenery was massive for me – I needed that stimulus because the 10-12k we spent running down Ocean Parkway was extremely boring. Not only that, but to get off the parkway you have to run UP the on ramp and it was fairly steep. I realize they’re trying to expand the race outside of the park and I LOVE that they’re doing that, but this massive length of the same road twice over (because of the switchback) was intensely monotonous. So when we got back up to the park, I felt renewed and refresh – the greenery literally brought me back to life.

At the finish line - my feet were absolutely burning here. Ow! — At the finish line – my feet were absolutely burning here. Ow!

That was… until we hit the uphill portion in Prospect Park that spans more than a kilometer. The uphills in this race are no joke and they’re extremely draining. While the half marathoners only had to do those uphills once, the people running the full marathon will have to repeat that Prospect Park uphill five times over. I felt really, really awful for them because it’s such a long uphill segment that it’s actually fairly painful (my feet were burning by the end of it).

Anyway, despite the course not being my favourite, there are a lot of things I loved about this race. Let’s dive into that!

There’s way more bathrooms than I’ve ever seen at a start zone. Literally dozens of port-a-potties set up. This is so necessary for a run and yet you almost never see enough.
The volunteers were freaking READY for you. There was tons of water and Gatorade at each station and they always had their hands out with cups.
There was a man keenly checking race bibs to make sure that the marathoners switched up the track sooner than half marathoners. Kudos to him because when you’re running your mind is pretty dead to the world and I’m sure people would’ve missed their turn off had he not been there grabbing people and telling them where to turn.
There was a surprising number of people cheering on the racers despite this having a 7 am start time!
The expo to pick up your race kit was quick and efficient. I was able to buy cheap gels there for the run which saved me some time. (There weren’t any on this course, and they told me it’s just because they weren’t big enough yet and didn’t reach out to any of the big brands.)
The medal is ENORMOUS and gorgeous.
Likewise, the t-shirt is gorgeous too! Great quality!
Race pictures are free! I got all of the shots above from their web site and that’s a huge touch that I always appreciate.
They gave us the silver foil blankets at the end AND toques! I was so cold after I finished the race (long cardio exertion drains my body of warmth) and I was so thankful to be able to put a hat on with my foil blankie.
There was tons of food at the end of the race. I got a New York bagel (I could’ve cried with relief) and slathered it with cream cheese, stuffed a banana in my face, and had water and gatorade. There was more than that available, but that was plenty for me once I’d finished!

While the course wasn’t my most favourite I’ve ever run, it must be said that the organization of the race was topnotch. I love that they’re expanding outside the park now, and I can’t wait to see where the race takes them next year.

Oh yeah! And my finish time? Not that great, it’s a long shot from my 2:01 earlier this year, but it’s still much better than the 2:08 and 2:09s I’ve been doing in the last few years! Regardless of my speed, I was happy to take part in the race. 🙂

Race Results

Finish Time: 2:07:22
Pace: 6:02 per kilometer
Overall placement: 1973/3808
Age group placement (Female 35-39 years): 81/251

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: 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

Fitness Friday: Panic Sets In (Half Marathon Training)

August 25, 2017Fitness, Runninghalf marathon, Race, Racing, Run, Running, trainingChelle

(old photo from several years ago - conveniently recycled for this post!) — (old photo from several years ago – conveniently recycled for this post!)

This will undoubtedly be an uninteresting post to many, but sometimes you have to face reality and just… put it out there.

So what’s the issue? Basically… I’ve got a half marathon in Sydney, Australia scheduled for September 17th and the longest run I’ve done in the last thirty days is 7 kilometers (this past Monday). By now I should be doing 60-80k per month and have solid lungs and muscles in place in which to complete a half marathon. But, with the condo purchase and move, and my never ending various sicknesses (in case you missed my update video: I’ve had two colds, an eye infection and horrifically debilitating food poisoning in the last three-four weeks), my last long run was only 11k and it was on July 22nd. To say I’m panicked about this upcoming race would be an understatement.

I went back to training this past week and set about an insane plan: I’m alternating 7-8k runs with weight training and then adding in progressively longer long runs as time goes on (I’m doing 12k tonight, then 14k AND a 15k next week alongside weight training and some shorter runs, etc.). The sad thing was that given my immediate start on Monday of this past week, it meant I only had 2.5 weeks to train for a half marathon which is a rather daunting task.

Of course, I do have a solid level of fitness that has helped keep my muscles from atrophying too much during the last month where I’ve done NOTHING, but it’s still really frightening to realize you are not only sorely under trained for something, but that you’ve got very little time in which to make up an entire MONTH of training. Half the issue is that although the race isn’t until September 17th – which would lead you to believe I’ve got more time that I’ve indicated – the reality is that we leave for Bali on September 7th and there’s NO WAY I can run in Indonesia because the night time temperature is 27 degrees!

I’m mostly putting this out there so that I don’t give up. I WANT to run a half marathon in Sydney – I love that feeling of being in a different country and doing something strenuous because I get this intense feeling of catharsis caused by such a long run. But man am I nervous. I also feel like something ALWAYS happens when I train for a race – like why can’t things ever go smoothly??

So that’s where I’m at. Fingers crossed I can still walk after this half and enjoy the rest of my vacation!