Race report (long with a lot of excitement thrown in)
Woooohooo! What a grand (Canadian) Thanksgiving day for me!
Got up at 5:45 - I mean, jumped out of bed at the first sound of the alarm, had two piece of toast with honey+cream cheese and honey+peanut butter, and a bit of water. Checked email, and learned that a guy-friend of mine just came in 10th in the Victoria Marathon in 2h44m. WOW! I realize my "race" today will be the equivalent of a "recovery" run for him, so I put a lot of heart in it.
Met up with a girlfriend and drove out to Granville Island for the start of the race. It was fairly chilly, around 8 Celcius, but I stuck with my decision to race in shorts and a t-shirt. 1600 people showed up, which makes the Vancouver Turkey Trot a sweet 10K race!
The first 2 km were somewhat slow. We were running on walking paths with many bottleneck areas, and then up a bridge ... on the sidewalk! They could have closed one lane, there was so little traffic! Anyway, I managed to run up the bridge - going up hills are what I like best - and didn't loose too many spots running down (I'm really slower on the way down). I hit the 3 km mark at about 16 minutes, and was really excited about that. My fastest run in life has been a 5m15s/km (8m20s/mile?) So I kept going and ditched my walk-every-10-minutes strategy. I was having a grand time. I just kept running and there was the 5km mark at 25m22s, so I was actually accelerating! I got really excited then. At the 6km mark there was a water station so I walked through to drink a tiny bit, about 30 seconds of walking and I was running again, thinking that this was not a good strategy but why not keep going if I had fun?? I started thinking that maybe the guy who put up the kilometer-marker signs didn't have his computer set up properly, and the last km will be longer than the others. But let's just run!
From that point, I don't think I was passed again. I felt like I was flying, and having definitely a grand time. The running surface was not the best. The walking path is really nice, but I don't like to run on uneven pavement and there was a lot of that. Anyway, I just kept going, and a bit after the 7km mark I see my girlfriend from behind. I have no idea when she passed me, because I was sure she was behind. So I increased the pace a bit to catch up with her and called 'Hey champion!' but it seems she was struggling a bit, although she's a better runner than me most of the time. Anyway, I just kept going with my pace and hit the 9km mark at 43msomething. Now I was really excited. I had hoped to be below 55 minutes, and now I was going for a sub-50! I usually don't care that much about time, but now I was really really surprised and excited, so it kicked me harder to keep going.
The last km was a bit harder when I realized the finish was a bit further than I thought, and my tummy started acting up a little bit. I must have slowed down because I finished just under 49 minutes. I was nonetheless very very very excited and happy to find my dear partner waiting there for me - he had ridden his bike to the race finish. Sweet!
Rumour says I came 24th in my age group (20-29) in a field of 150 or so, but I haven't seen the final results. For now I'm just really happy.... and my quads HURT like crazy. I won a Puma hat for my pain, and the race shirt is really gool. I think I'm going to go sit in a cold bath and dream about a sub-2h half-marathon in the spring!
Thanks for letting me share this!
SJ R'n'R 1/2 Marathon Results!
Hurrah, ran fast!! Well fast for me. Did the San Jose Rock'n'Roll Marathon yesterday and the music, weather and course were awesome. Did it in 2:00:45 :). So excited about that.
The course was one of the most awesome courses I've run on for a half marathon (well I've only done 2 but hey :P), scenic neighborhoods, flat flat course, shady trees, tons of music, and a great crowd. :) Someone, let's run this again next year!