I arrived in Ottawa on Friday night - stayed at an airbnb in Gatineau, just across the Ottawa River in Quebec. Decided to just rest that night. Then decided to go out to Boston's Pizza for dinner and to watch the Blue Jays beat Boston. The dinner was okay, and I even splurged on a beer, but the game was not on their screens - I guess a Toronto team does not rate that highly in Quebec. Received an e-mail from the race director - they are thinking of cancelling the races because of the unusual heat and humidity. Today it hit 32C/90F. Crap!
A morning shake out run on Saturday, and already it was getting hot. It's going to hit 32C/90F again today, and even in the early morning it's uncomfortable. Left late morning to pick up my package and visit the Expo. Busy place - there are just under 47 000 runners registered for all the events this weekend, and they are all here today, it seems. I'm number 20137.
I've already made the mental adjustment that I will not be running hard tomorrow and certainly not setting a PB, so I am relaxed big time and spend more time than usual at the Expo - checking out most of the displays. I don't need more shoes at this point, but I do find an interesting display rack for my medals - which are currently living in a shoe box. So, I buy it for $25. As a post note, it's now hanging in my house, with all 39 medals displayed. Cool.
Today the 5k and 10k events are being run, and they are watching them closely to get a hint of what they should do re: cancellation. Turns out the 5k goes ahead as planned and the 10k is pushed back 30 minutes to 7pm. They have already announced that my event has been moved up from 9am to 8:15am in the morning, and the Marathon is going as planned at 7am.
The 5k gets the brunt of the weather. 32C/90F, with a humidex of 39C/102F. I don't know how they even ran in that. Some heat related issues for quite a number of runners, but the 10k still goes ahead. They lucked out - the skies opened up big time just as it started, and the downpour lasted for a half hour or so. Still steamy, but at least everyone is soaked down.
Went to Church, then the pasta dinner, and then home. Will have to leave earlier than planned tomorrow because of the change in start time. The pasta dinner, by the way, was spectacular - one of the best I've been to.
Sunday morning and it's a lot cooler than expected. It's overcast and there is a breeze. It's just 19C/66F at 7am, so we may have caught a break (although for me, I still consider it hot). Turns out, although the high today will still hit 32C/90F, it will only have gone up to 21C/70F by the time I cross the finish line. Plus, they have added misting stations along the route, and have hand delivered letters to every house on the route, asking the residents to set up their sprinklers along the road. Turns out, quite a few of them do just that. It was great.
Since I had to arrive early, I get to watch the start of the Marathon - I've never done that before. It was quite interesting. As the pacers ran by, I made note of where I might be in the crowd of runners. It went on and on and on ... Too funny watching the people at the back. There was an older man with a walker! I wondered if that might be me in the future. :)
So now, my warm up routine and final porta potty visit, and I'm making my way into the Blue Corral at the front. There are almost 15 000 racers in this event. Now I have to decide where to place myself. At the start of my training, way back in the winter, I was hoping for a 1:30. Then, having lost a few weeks of training due to that injury, I had set a 1:32 goal to keep open the possibility of a New York Marathon qualifier. Then, with my overtraining issues, and having lost the last 3 weeks of quality runs, I went to a 1:35 and then a 1:40 goal. And last night, with the heat warnings, I kind of set my heart on a very conservative 1:45. Now, however, with the day starting off cooler than expected, I'm putting 1:40 back on the table. I park myself next to the pacer holding that sign, and we're off.
I'm going to take water at every aid station, and I'm running through every sprinkler that is set up on my side of the road. I'm not even sure what a 1:40 pace is, so I quickly do the math and figure it's about a 7:35/mile pace. Mostly, I'm sticking like glue to this pacer as we work our way through the crowds in the first mile.
By mile 2, I'm comfortable at this pace, and I let myself move ahead of the pacer. It's not really intentional - more, it's a matter of focussing on running the tangents and trying to stay in the open as much as possible. But this is Canada - unlike Chicago where I had my bib ripped off, here people apologize if they so much as brush against you. :)
So, by mile 3 I'm running free of the pacer, and I seem to be nailing my splits right around a 7:30 pace, and I feel fine. Around mile 5, a spectator is giving out bottled water, so I grab one. It's great - I feel like an elite! :) Even better, I'm able to sip it as I go and end up downing most of it over the next mile, and dumping the last bit of it over my head.
It's right around here that we catch up with the slower Marathoners. Up until now, we are all running at basically the same pace. But now, things get clogged up a bit, and there is the constant stepping around of the Marathoners. There are 3 points where their route branches out and back, and even at the first of those, there are some who are cutting the course. I don't blame them in this heat, and it turns out later that the organizers cut off about 6 miles of the Marathon route for the slower runners - after about 4 hours. It was a smart move, as the day will turn blazing hot later on.
At around mile 8 I grab a gel and down it. It was more like water than gel in the heat, but it was timely. I was concerned my over training issues would catch up with me at this point, but there is still some spring in my stride and I feel good. We cross the Ottawa River into Quebec where we have about 2 miles to run - some hills here, but not too bad. Then back across another bridge into Ontario, and just 3 miles to go.
Up until now, the crowd support has been very good. I mean, not Chicago good - that was crazy loud the whole route - but steady and helpful. Now however, the final 2 miles along one side of the Rideau Canal, and then the other, it reminds me more of Chicago. Loud and enthusiastic. I love it! I pick up my pace and am running in the 6:30 range, but then realize I am still too far from the finish line to run that hard and I'm afraid of gassing my legs, so I dial it back a bit. So, across the bridge over the Canal, a sharp turn to the right, and the home stretch. I finish strong, and I feel fine. I'm pretty sure I could have hit 1:35 without too much distress, but I have no regrets running a conservative race, given all the variables I was facing.
I spend a little time in the cooling tent, but I'm feeling no lingering effects and so make my way through the park quickly for my stretches and I'm done. A 1:37:14 official finish. My splits:
7:26, 7:32, 7:32, 7:31, 7:36, 7:22, 7:30, 7:24, 7:21, 7:14, 7:25, 6:59, 7:02 and the finish kick in 6:08.
575/14423 total. Top 4%
496/6432 males. Top 8%
32/877 category (50-54) Top 3.65%
7:24/mile pace average 4:36/km
Oh, my sister ran her second "Half" in Toronto at the same time. She's the one who I ran with in her 1st Half last summer (picture of that on my blog home page). The Toronto race was a women's only. Turns out they reduced it to a 12k because of the heat, but she did well and finished and is already planning her next Half this Fall.
As for me, I'm going to take the next 2 weeks off from running. I want to be sure I'm past the over training issues and all healed up. Then I'll get into base training mode. I may run some short events this summer, and maybe even a half this Fall, but I'm not going to do all the speed work I had planned previously. I want to move smoothly from base training to Boston Marathon training this winter. Boston is now going to be my primary focus.
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