This was my chance to give back - my 1st experience as a pacer. I had a lot of fun. I was scheduled to run 10 miles today, so I adjusted my other training runs this week to give me the same weekly mileage, but allow me to run 13 miles today.
I drove to Collingwood Friday. Collingwood is a 4 hour drive from my home. Unfortunately, came across an accident scene with a fatality. No emergency services had yet arrived. Sad.
Stayed at a motel just a few minutes from the starting line. I ran the inaugural Collingwood race last year (10km) and that was a PB for that distance for me.
The day started with rain and very cold wind. Temperature was 10C or 50F, but the wind just cut through your clothes. I kept a wind breaker on right until the start (ran in shorts and short sleeves, which ended up being a good choice, as the wind broke eventually and it warmed up a bit). The sun even came out at the end.
So, I decided to play the part of the pace bunny. Wore bunny ears. They blew off at the 9.5 km marker, but someone picked them up and gave them back to me at the finish line. I also drew a bunny face on my face (cute, I was told) and of course I carried the 1:55 sign. In fact, it turned out that I was the ONLY pacer today. Nobody else. Last year there were more. But it sure drew a lot of attention to me, which I enjoyed.
I was surprised, actually, at how many people used me to pace. Good feeling. To finish in 1:55, I had to run 5:27/km splits. Although I've been training in miles, I decided to go with the km's today, since the course was marked only that way. That pace works out to running around 8:46/mile, which is at the fast end of my 'easy pace' training runs.
Since I knew my GPS would show the distance differently, I decided to aim for a pace of 5:25/km. Basically, it was impossible for me to run the tangents, as I had a crowd of runners around me the whole time, and they took the inside track on the turns. By kilometer 6, I was already about 25 seconds 'off' in my distance. I counted the seconds between the markers and my GPS every Kilometer, did the math in my head, and figured out where I was. For most of the race, I was about 30 or so seconds ahead of goal pace, which I figured was pretty good.
The course is fairly flat. Almost half of it runs in one very long straight stretch, which was tough for a few reasons: 6 miles in one direction, into the wind, and with one very significant hill (up). That's where my bunny ears blew off.
I ran steady throughout, did not stop for any water along the way, and only made a few pacing mistakes (had to really resist the urge to speed up at the end!).
This pace was REALLY easy for me. I could easily have run the course again (for a 3:50 marathon). But I WAS sore in all those places that have been sore for my training, and the 4 hour drive home afterwards didn't help that. Oh well.
Now, my actual splits were:
5:18 (oops, too fast - slow down!)
5:25 (better) 5:22 5:28 5:21 5:30 5:25 5:14 5:24 5:22 5:20 5:18 5:21 5:28 5:25 5:29 5:29 5:07 (drat, slow down) 5:15 5:31 and 5:33
for a finish time of 1:54:14, just 46 seconds faster than my pace time, which I believe is within the bounds of what is acceptable. Hey, for a 1st time, I happy.
I know at least 3 runners who ran a PB (told me) and had used me for that purpose. I also ALMOST had a free trip to Las Vegas (don't think the runners behind me knew I could hear them talking about me!). Apparently, I was cute and they wanted to take me with them. Too bad they couldn't keep up. ;)
So, pacing experience aside, I am now just 4 weeks away from the Hamilton Marathon. My only concern is my hips/glutes/hamstrings, but if they don't get any worse, I can run through that pain right now. This coming week, starting tomorrow, is my longest training week. Then I can start to taper.
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