Up bright and early this morning, getting ready for the Marquis. Not unlike my regular Sunday long run prep . . . clothes, snacks, gatorade, iPod - no shades today as it was overcast. Temperature was -7C at the start, no wind, and the sun broke through as the morning wore on.
Tons of people in the Running Room this morning. Lots of unfamiliar faces. Probably 50-80 runners for the Marquis, plus all of the regular groups that go out on Sunday mornings.
None of my peeps were planning on the run, so I was solo today. Didn't have GPS coverage when I walked out the door, but I did get the watch going from the start. Finally my Garmin chugged to life about 1k in.
I can say that all of the "fear of the unknown" melted away after were were a couple of kms into the run. Having the run in our neighbourhood made it a bit easier to adjust to . . . it felt like a number of shorter runs that we do all the time - except strung together in sequence.
I passed 10 minutes at the bottom of Spring Rd, and figured I'd get my walk break at the top instead. Then, felt well enough to continue on and thought I'd take the next walk. Well, you know what happened next. I ended up not walking for the first 35 minutes and my body was fine with it. After I got out of the park, I decided that I would do the Marquis "straight through", taking it at my regular Sunday training pace and not pushing things.
Interestingly enough, this first long straight run felt really good. I kept a good cadence on the 18 hills, and never felt like I needed to catch my breath or walk out some pain. I did have a twinge on the top of my left knee, and another on my right groin, but I can report that four hours later I feel fine.
Finished at 2:13:44, which is a pretty good time for my first Marquis. I settled in following a large group and smaller group, and we jockeyed back and forth for the second half of the run. I had no issue with the route - it was well explained on Google Maps, and me being the geographer, I checked it out thoroughly. Even the two slight detours at the end of the HighPark portion, and through Lessard Park off of Humberview were easy enough to get through. Here is the link for the route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1509308
I highly recommend the run to all of my WWHF peeps!
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