Last weekend I headed back to my hometown of Ottawa for Ottawa Race Weekend. My dad was eager to run a half marathon after having accomplished his first 5 and 10k races last year. Eager to add another racing event to my repertoire, I was more than happy to join him.
Watching one of the waves take off during the 5k
Last year I had run the 5k during Ottawa Race Weekend and had nailed a personal worst timing which I’d like attribute to the intense heat and the horrifically laid out start zone that actually meant we had to walk about three minutes before we could start running. Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive for this race since I wasn’t sure how well the half marathon would be set up.
It was during last year’s race weekend that two of my friends had run the half and I had become inspired to run longer and longer races. So I kind of felt like a champ that I had managed to upgrade myself from a 5k to a full on half marathon within the year! This was my third half, so I’m starting to feel pretty comfortable with them. Well, comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, I guess.
Picking up my race kit.
Despite my worries, both the starting zone AND the weather were excellent. The morning of the race was fairly sunny, but the temperature was still a blissful 15 degrees. The humidity wasn’t insane and even though there were premonitions for hot temperatures, they wouldn’t be showing up till the afternoon. Assuming we didn’t totally bomb out of the race, we would easily be done before noon.
Start zone for the half and full
So how was it? Well, it was interesting. I had an awesome first 10k. I was pushing a pace of 5:55/6:00 per kilometer and feeling seriously good. I was starting to think I could keep up that pace for the entire race. I wasn’t dehydrated, my legs and body felt good and it wasn’t boiling hot. Huzzah!
Finishing the race, midway, and one shot on the blasted bridge
However… the second half of the race had a ridiculous amount of hills. Once we hit the parkway, there was a NASTY hill that just seemed to loom in the distance and then last forever once you hit it. The downhill afterwards really didn’t give me a chance to recover much before we hit the Quebec side of the race. And the Quebec side just fucking flat out SUCKED. It was uphill, suddenly hot (???!) and there was NO WATER until we were exiting Quebec. And of course… the water station was right before another uphill to get on the bridge to cross back into Ontario.
And then? Oh yes. MORE HLLS. I swear to god I’ve never noticed how many hills there are on the parkway, in Hull and once back in Ottawa on Sussex. Holy GOD. I prided myself on running the uphills even though I saw people bailing out left, right and center to walk it. Amazingly, this was one of the first races I’ve done where I didn’t wonder why the hell I was doing this. I really wanted to finish and be done with it, but I never thought about bailing out and walking (which is usually a very consistent thought I have during EVERY race!).
Right after I’d finished! That’s one decent looking medal!
I finished the whole 21.1 kilometers in at two hours, thirteen minutes and forth-three seconds. I was about five minutes off where I figured I would be, and slightly disappointed, but not enough for me to totally irritated like I was with the 2015 Sporting Life 10K. I’ll be doing the Scotiabank Waterfront Half again this year in October, so I’ve got plenty of time to re-focus myself and work towards a better time.
Amazingly though? My 66 year old father ran the whole half marathon and came in only TEN MINUTES after me. That’s INCREDIBLE! I mean, I really thought he’d be closer to the 2:45 mark, but he really nailed it with a 2:24!
This was my second year doing the Sporting Life 10k and I was excited to be back. It’s a lovely downhill course down Yonge Street that nearly guarantees you a new personal best. I had a few odds stacks against me, but I kind of hoped I could somehow bust out a new personal best (pb) regardless.
Sporting Life 10k – looking up Yonge Street at Wellesley
With an 8 am start time, this race is slightly awkward to get to since the subway doesn’t actually open till 9 am on Sundays in Toronto. I hopped in a cab to get up to the starting zone and met up with Jenn from A Beautiful Zen who was also running the race. Hooray for beauty bloggers running races! I was glad to have the company before the start because waiting for your corral to start by yourself can be especially boring.
I had signed up for the 50-55 minute corral months ago. This was… ambitious. My time last year on this course had been around 56:20, and my all time personal best was around 55:10 (Toronto Island 10k). I had expected to train a bit better throughout the winter months in order to get under 55 minutes, but I knew I hadn’t done a good enough job by the time race day hit.
I caught my husband offguard!
As it stands though, corrals are determined by yourself, and no one else. Some people sign up for the faster corrals (sub 50 minutes) who don’t even have a hope in hell of completing the race in under an hour and a half, so it’s a bit frustrating at times. (Which leads me to an upcoming post I’m going to make to vent out my frustrations on racing etiquette…)
ANYWAY. My corral started out around 8:20 and it was… HOT. Hot, humid and just all around nasty feeling. My first 2k were fine, but there’s that nasty slight uphill around the 2.5k mark that got me last year and it got me again this year. It just feels so unexpected to suddenly be climbing in such predominantly downhill race.
My husband was waiting, camera in hand, at the 5.5k mark at the intersection of Yonge and Wellesley. It’s actually a rather emotional experience to see him while racing, but it’s a good one. Unfortunately, by the time I saw him, I knew this wasn’t going to be a good race. My 5k split time was just over 28 minutes and I ALWAYS slow down in the second half of the race, so I knew I was going to be well over 56 minutes for a finishing time. Ugh.
And away I go. Mmm check out that back sweat.
Unfortunately, although I wasn’t feeling especially terrible despite the disgusting humidity and heat, I just couldn’t pull it out to run any faster. The extra ten pounds I’ve been carrying on my frame since Christmas just haven’t fallen off and it was definitely causing me to slow down a little bit.
2015 Sporting Life 10K Map
I finished with a disappointing 58:53. Roughly 3:45 slower than my best 10k and 2:30 slower from last year’s race. It also feels especially weird that I turned out such a poor race when my 5k in March was such a good one!
Oddly, despite my time being significantly worse than last year, I actually MOVED UP in the ranks. How weird is that? Last year I was in the top 25% for both my gender and category placement, but this time I clocked in around the top 21%. Additionally, I finished in the top 30% overall, whereas last year I was in the top 36%. This has given me some much needed perspective! While my race time might have been highly disappointing to me, I can see that other people struggled on the course this year, and I’m pretty happy that I moved up in placement compared to last year!
In the end though… I’m not happy at all, and it’s given me the push I need to really up the ante with my training. I can no longer just “go for a run” really – I have to be focused on tempo runs and intervals which aren’t fun, but seem to be necessary for improving my speed.
Right after the finish line. Not looking terrible, but not overly impressed either.
My second 10K race and one I also felt ill prepared for. The week and a half prior to the race I was like “hang on, you only ran TWICE last month and you think you’re doing a 10K race in 9 days? Are you crazy? Or just stupid?” Seeing that I’d only run two days in the previous month was slightly shocking. I knew I’d pulled out of running a lot since I was playing a lot of sports (soccer and frisbee were both ramping up and down at that point), but I didn’t realize I’d scaled back on my running THAT much. So the week and a half prior to the race I was running almost every day in an attempt to cram for the run (something you’re told NOT to do…).
The timing on everything that happened in the nine days prior to the race was just awful. Not only was I suddenly trying to bust out faster paces and longer runs, but I’d also had a wart frozen off one of my toes (nothing big, I just wanted it gone) at the same time. What an idiot. Two days prior to the race, I could barely even walk. I was out with a friend and the amount of hobbling I did to get home that Friday night was not only embarrassing, but it was so bad that I had to pull out of my soccer plans for the rest of the weekend in the hopes that I could ice and elevate my swollen toe enough to be able to even stand on it come Sunday morning, let alone run.
Anyway, on to the actual race!
Sporting Life 10K – Somewhat close to the start line
The start time for our corral was 8:40 a.m., and I knew I needed to eat something prior to run lest I feel like absolute death without some kind of fuel in my system. I woke up at about 6:30 that Sunday morning and it was absolutely beautiful outside – no wind, sunny, and about 14C degrees. I had half a small bowl of Quaker oatmeal mix and a bit of water, but not too much as I didn’t want to risk having a full bladder throughout my run.
About to head out for the race
Of course, race jitters kicked in and I must’ve gone to the bathroom about four times before I even left the apartment. I met up with my friend at 8 a.m., and took a cab up to the starting area around Yonge and Eglinton since the subway doesn’t run until 9 a.m. on Sundays. It was PACKED. We watched the corral before us take off (8:20 a.m. – Blue) and even though I had some friends running that group, I could’t see them at all because there must’ve been about seven thousand people taking off in that group! We lined up for our time slot (Green Corral) relatively close to the front and waited for the start time.
Bib Number
My previous 10K time was 59:37 from my race in New York City back in March, so I knew I wanted to beat that but I wasn’t really sure if I’d be any quicker since I felt slightly more out of shape than last time. I’d also been having a lot of late nights lately and was definitely running a sleeping deficit. Thankfully, and perhaps this is somewhat of a cheap move, but the bulk of this course is very much downhill down Toronto’s Yonge Street so that gave me, and everyone else in this run, a very decent step up. My friend didn’t think he’d finish in under an hour, but he’s fairly fit so I was pretty certain he’d do better than he expected.
The race started and we went our separate ways after we finally broke free from the crowd – and it was certainly busy since there was about 22,000 people running this! I was pretty certain I was ahead of him, but I didn’t see him for a very, very long time and figured I’d gotten way too far ahead.
Two kilometers into the race I suddenly got that feeling (ladies, you know what I’m talking about) that I had gotten my period. I was NOT prepared for it. Another half a kilometer later, the cramps kicked in. All I’m picturing at this point is getting to the finish line soaked in blood and looking like a damn idiot. There wasn’t even any point in stopping at a porta potty because it’s not like I was carrying a tampon with me. Praying I was wrong, I did my best to try to forget about it, ignore the ever increasing cramps and keep going. (I don’t care if that’s TMI for some people, the reality is that this could happen to anyone.)
The cramps eventually did dissipate somewhere around the 4 km marker and body-wise it was pretty smooth sailing from thereon in. Nothing felt tight or cramped, my legs felt loose and everything else felt in tip-top shape.
Zoomphoto Shot
Running down Yonge is pretty interesting. You can see how far off everything is and you really wonder how the heck you’ll ever make it there. Seeing the tall Bay tower on Bloor Street far off in the distance and realizing that’s not even the halfway marker is pretty bracing. As it’s a course I don’t often run (I’ve only ever gone up Yonge Street since I live south of Bloor) it made for an interesting route. When I run, have a habit of staring at my feet, or directly in front of me, since I’m usually looking out for potholes or people to pass, but with this run, since it was on a downhill slope, there was a lot more opportunity to look up and off into the distance. It was really neat to take in more of the surroundings than normal. Once again I wish I’d had a camera with me so I could take in the sights and post them on this blog, but ultimately my racing time matters more to me and carrying a camera while taking pictures would’ve cut into my time.
As I hit Bloor Street and moved closer into the downtown core, I started to pick up my pace. I started checking my Garmin to make sure I was on track since I definitely didn’t want to run slower than my previous race. I was fairly certain I was on track for a 56-57 minute finish, but I didn’t want to suddenly falter and drop down to 58 or 59 minutes. It’s funny to think that a few minutes means so much, but shaving off time in running always feels important, even if the numbers are small. At least then you know you’ve accomplished something and done better than you did last time.
I actually ran into my friend around kilometer 7 and was shocked to find him ahead of me! I thought I’d left him far behind! I was pleased that he was keeping pace rather well (this was his first 10K) and clapped him on the shoulder to let him know I was there and gave him a big thumbs up and a smile. That being said, I got annoyed with myself for thinking I was in the lead (not that it was a race between us, but clearly I got cocky) and put on the burners. You can see my sudden pace increase between the 7th and 8th kilometers.
You can see the speed increase in the second half of the race (be aware that my Nike+ tracker is off significantly for speed and distance when compared to my Garmin)
The final kilometer was hard. It was one of those moments when you’re like “why am I even doing this? You can just walk the rest of the way and it won’t matter.” But I persisted. Physically, at the time, I’m pretty sure my body was telling me I couldn’t up my pace to finish a little bit faster, but when I look back on my speed grids at the end, I was definitely increasing my pace in the last kilometer. So I suppose I was pushing it, but at the time I felt completely lethargic. I also didn’t feel like I could suddenly sprint to the finish line either, which is something I had always felt in my other races (and was kind of an indication that I hadn’t been pushing steadily enough throughout those races). I mean, if you can bust into a full sprint at the end, you clearly weren’t utilizing the last 9.5 kilometers appropriately for pace.
I crossed the finish line and then headed off to the right hand side to look for my friend. I wasn’t sure if he was ahead or behind me at this point, and I kept getting ushered towards the awards area. In the end, he came in two minutes behind me and he was soooo happy with his finishing time. I clocked in at 56:23 and he was about two minutes later than that. Since he hadn’t expected to finish in even under an hour he was very visibly excited about his time! As for me, I was dead pleased with mine. With a race time of 56:23, I had managed to shave off 3:14 from my previous 10K!
2014 Sporting Life 10K Route
It wasn’t until the very end that I realized that my foot problem hadn’t even remotely bothered me and that I definitely had not gotten my period (eeesh… thank heavens for that – although I’d love to know what the heck those cramps were because they were definitely time of the month cramps).
It was an awesome day and I’m really pleased with my finishing time. Now to work my way towards a 50 minute 10K!
10K Race Summary
Finish Time: 56:23 (new personal best)
Pace: 5:39 per kilometer
Overall placement: 7901/21751
Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 557/2102
Gender placement (F): 3166/12739
Next up is a 5K in Ottawa during Ottawa’s Race Weekend!
