Looking back at the Spring Season

Sunday June 16th,

Half Marathon: Location - Barrie

Condition: Dreadful. Absolutely pouring rain during warmup, and then somehow seem to increase in strength at about the 6k mark of the race.

Course: Hilly first half with lots of sharp turns, followed by a second half on a wet loose gravel path along the waterfront.

Therefore overall, not exactly ideal condition to set a PB. The race got started at 8:25 (25 minutes after the scheduled start time). Looks like the crew was simply late to set up because of the rain? What they don't work in the rain? Anyways, that unnerved me a bit, since it threw off my warm-up time and it meant that I had my pre-race diabetic coma mix too early. By diabetic coma mix, I mean a full GU Roctane mixed into a 591mL Gatorade bottle - so sweet you could feel your teeth getting cavities as you drink it. I normally have this 15-20 minutes prior to the race start which means my blood sugar levels peak at the gun. As I stood on the start line I thought about sticking to my race plan - which was simply to get in the lead and hold on to it. I wanted to treat this event more like a race against my competitors versus racing against the time. I did this because I knew with the weather and the course layout, a personal best would be practically impossible and therefore demoralizing if I wasn't hitting my splits. For those who don't run, what I mean is if to get a PB I need to run the first 5k in 16:40 and I were to let's say run 16:55 or something like that I would be demoralizing to realize that I was off the pace. Now, for some people they may say that would motivate them to push harder the next 5k but I know how my mind works, and for me it would be disappointing and therefore slow me down.

Gun goes off, and we are away. The guy in the picture in the black was my competition. I hammered to first kilometer in 3:05 hoping to kill his spirits and deter any other competitors from trying to stay with me. And...it worked. By the 2km mark I was on my own and starting to increase the gap between me and the field. One big hill at 7.5km slowed me down quite a bit, but I bounced back with a 3:22 and then a 3:24 kilometer on my way to an opening 34:10 10k. The second half of the race on the loose muddy gravel with a small incline made it very difficult to let the pistons fire at top speed. Usually, I reach for another GU Roctane at the 14-15k mark, but unfortunately there was so much mud on my back and shorts that it was impossible to open the zipper on my shorts to get the gel. I tried and tried, until I felt my pace starting to slow too much so I just prayed to get through to the end without any fuel. To make matters a bit worse the people who were supposed to be manning the water/gatorade table at 15.5k were huddled in the car to avoid the rain, and were unable to get out in time to hand me some fluids. So basically start to finish no water, no gatorade, no gels, and not much help from my diabetic coma mix before the race. At 18km my lack of fueling caught up to me - cramping in my left quad after one downhill. The pace slowed to a 3:36 kilometer for that split but was able to hold 3:32 until the end. It was a wire to wire victory, coming in at 1:14:05, and beating second place by 3 and a half minutes. Unfortunately the turn around from the trail to the finish cost me probably a few seconds, meaning it could have been sub 1:14 which I would have been a little more happy with. Still, a win is a win, and I set a new course record in the process.

 To sum up, I feel this spring was my breakout season. Setting a new personal best with a win at the Winterman Half in Ottawa in February, to a solid race in Hamilton in the 30k around the bay, then beating my half PB in London, and then going on to beat my PB once again in Mississauga with 1:12:22, and then to wrap it all up with a solid wire to wire victory in Barrie. Sure, it has not been without some tough stretches, like my achilles injury back in april and a pretty steady injury to my left and then right tibia. But still, in these last 4.5 months of racing I have improved a lot as a runner, and learned so much about new training methods/workouts, and learned how to incorporate new cross training exercises into my regimen. I look forwards to the fall season, in which I look to improve even more on my current PBs, but for now I am just going to enjoy some easy running for the next couple weeks - no race pace workouts just yet. I will give an update in the next post about my race schedule and my current training.