The Recap
Gear: Skechers GoMed Speed 3 Shoes Boston Marathon Edition, Skechers Race Singlet and Skechers 2inch Racing Split Shorts
Pre Race: Arrived to the race in good time with a lot of uncertainty and nervousness. I knew that I would give it my best, but I had not yet tested the hip on any sort of hill at race pace (the Barrie course is very hilly for the first half), let alone for 21.1 km. I had an overwhelming feeling of under-preparedness due to a lack of race specific run workouts leading into the race. Looking back on my May 2014 training logs and into June until my PB 1:11:03 at Barrie last year, as you remember I was having the time of my life running consistently 200 km a week at 7000-10000 ft above sea level in Park City. During that time I logged 15 hard run workouts ranging from three 12 k tempo runs, a 1-2-3-2-1km X2 fartlek style run, 5X broken 1500, 4X3.2k, 8X1km, 25X400m, and some others that I won't divulge because they are my secret mix of interval workouts that I came up with myself to put a major hurt on the physiological systems that I don't won't any competitors who may be reading to know about (I actually really enjoy developing workouts and literally spend hours going over how to design a set of intervals try to force a certain adaptation. It's the reason why I would absolutely love to coach a cross country team one day.) But anyways back to the race. In contrast to last year, where I felt like I could run the legs off anyone in the province, this year I had done all of two workouts. Now you might say o so you did do some workouts heading into the race, I thought you didn't do any. Well let me say, those weren't really what I would consider: a) half marathon specific type workouts, and b) the resulting pace and feel of those two was less than inspiring. I had done one 6X1mile workout - my first workout back from injury the Monday before the race and then a 30 minute tempo run on Wednesday just 4 days before the race. Despite those both being a bit slower
Race: Felt decent to start, first kilometre I always consider a freebie and really wasn't worried about the hip at this point since there's usually so much adrenaline pumping that it would take a heck of a lot to put a person down. Went through 1k in 3:10, and got into my rhythm at about 3k. For 1st and 2nd km my stride length was 1.60 meters and 1.55m, with cadence of 198 steps per minute and 194 per minute respectively. At 3k, from my garmin data you can see what I mean by getting into rhythm since my cadence dropped 193 spm and 1.51m stride and stayed that way for the next 6k with the stride length changing by no more than 1 cm and stride rate changing by no more than 1 step per minute plus or minus. Just kept repeating two mantras in my head the whole way, "Smoothly cruising," and "What else would you rather be doing," (which I've started to repeat through most of my training runs and bikes when I'm struggling to stay focused or hurting). Rolled through 5k mark in 16:48. In that first 5k keeping with the Barrie half marathon tradition, took a wrong turn and had take a u-turn to get back on course. According to my garmin data (which is incredibly accurate to the point it can see if I'm running in the shoulder or on the sidewalk), this fiasco cost me 28 seconds. But got back on course and angrily pushed the pace for a minute or so to try to get back onto pace. Now when I say on pace, really for this race I had no burning desire to force myself to run a specific pace, just wanted to keep it smooth and cruise at whatever pace I felt was comfortably hard.
At 9k mark I got a wind of energy, and figured this was the time to try to capitalize so I made a pact with myself to push the pace a bit until about 13k mark. Just figured in my head that would mean roughly a 13 minute or so effort, and that 13 minutes of hard hard running would be doable with the current hip situation - since I had managed to get up the hills with not too too much of an issue, and it could pay dividends in the end. So reeled off a 3:18, 3:19, 3:20, 3:22 km, and on 13 going into 14 k while I was pleased with how that went, entering now the back half of the race which is on a loose gravel path I was starting to hurt, not in my hip but overall fatigue was seeping in, probably due a combo of a lack of mileage at race pace heading into the race and now being back into the wind. Pace went from 3:25 to 3:31 all the way to marathon pace for a split at 3:40. That pissed me right off so tried to re-focus, re-group and get back down to business. The race was in the bag at this point, up by about a mile from second place, and even though my soul intention of this race was to just win for the third straight year, I'm not the type of person to settle for just the win. I wanted to prove to myself that despite no big mileage or workouts heading into the race, I was still in great shape aerobically speaking from all my cycling and swimming and strength work, and therefore could still run a decent time. So I buckled down and really tried to start churning the legs. Went from 1.44m stride at 189 spm to 1.53m stride at 191. Hit the 20k mark in 1:09 and gave it everything that was left (there wasn't much at this point - especially with not taking an ounce of water or gel throughout the race - been a year since my last half so just didn't really think about it), put down a 3:05 km and finished 1:12:05 (without the 28 second wrong turn would be 1:11:37) winning by 6 minutes over 2nd place, and completing the three-peat. I think it is pretty darn good to be only 34 seconds slower than last year, despite the huge discrepancy in run-specifc training between the two years. And hey, 4 races this year 3 wins, let's keep it rolling until the Canadian XC Championships in November.
Post-Race
First of all, thankyou Skechers Performance Division for giving me all the gear I need to be successful this season. The Go Meb's are pretty awesome. They are super comfortable for a racing flat, and fit my feet quite well. Light and fast, plus they just look cool when looking down at my feet.
The day after the race I was in quite a bit of pain all around, especially in my back. And the back issue has now lasted 2 weeks - it's the same issue in my left lower back that I had in February. But it's not going to stop me. Wednesday night headed over after my final exams to Stratford for a 10k race. I was intending on this being a tempo run to see how the back was doing and was going to just run at half-marathon pace and keep it smooth. But found out just prior to the race that despite a very short stretch at the beginning and end of the race being on road about 7k was on an incredibly hilly, and some parts muddy trail with twists and turns, roots, etc. So nice easy tempo where I was intending on running about 34 minutes (again just a cruise effort just to test if my back could handle another race this coming weekend), became a hard hard effort. Talking to the course designer before the race, it was funny how proud he was of how difficult he had made it, I chuckled through gritted teeth. But anyways, ran 34:00 just as I was intending, but a solid 34 minutes of effort for a new course record, and 4 minute win. Eye-opening in some respect to see that wow cross country running is dang tough - I wish I wore my heart rate monitor because after cresting one of the biggest hills (which was also high grass covered) my heart rate must have been over 200. I literally felt my heart thumping against the wall of chest and was just gasping for air when I got to the top. But with that, although my back was in some serious pain during my cool down, it wasn't unbearable today so most likely heading to Burlington on the weekend for a 10 miler. It's not 100% at this point but the main race that I'm 99% intending on doing and everything for the next month will be building towards in the Humana Chicago Half Marathon on July 19 where I will look to run under 1:10 and maybe finish top 12 - Kenyans and some of the big guns come out to this one. So until next time, remember the line as your grinding away the miles, "What else would you rather be doing."
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