May 27, 2007 Ottawa ING Half Marathon Race Report
It's been a long road getting to this race - about four months of
toiling, on treadmills, on the roads, local paths, and more. And
training went great, no glitches or injuries to set me back. Until the
last week before the race. My calf muscles were getting pretty sore
and tight from the high mileage, and I was at my wit's end trying to
resolve the problem. As a last ditch effort, I bought a special
runner's muscle massage tool (The Stick). With just a few days to the
race, I was skeptical that I could get the legs feeling normal again,
but by race morning I felt right as rain. And rain it did.
Two runner friends came out to do this event with me. This was a good
thing, since I was able to run with one of them, passing the time
nicely, for over half of the race. By about the 13 or 14 km mark, I
felt like I could step up the pace, so I moved ahead on my own. I just
kept passing people and moving up in the pack. I ate my two gels as
planned, and sipped water about every ten minutes, and had absolutely
no stomach problems, unlike previous 21k races.
At around that same time, the rain started, but it was just a light
drizzle, enough to cool us off. The temperature was about 12 Celsius,
but of course, we were all heating up a bit from the running. Other
than a few interesting but not killer hills in the first 8k, things
were uneventful but good - smooth sailing, feeling fine pretty much
the whole way. Before reaching the 5k point, I started to feel a hint
of a cramp in one leg, but I was able to manage my way through it,
keeping my pace steady and not pushing to the point of a cramp. Some
pain is manageable.
This race went by very quickly for me, likely because the first half
was spent chatting with a friend, and that part was also on the new
(hillier) part of the course, which happened to be in areas I had
never explored before. That was on the Quebec side of the Ottawa
River; once we got back on Ontario soil, I said aloud that now it's
only a 10k race. By breaking the race down into segments, I avoided
the dreaded negative thoughts that can override the brain, and send a
person into a bad state. Then at the 15-16k turnaround, I told myself
that now it's just a quick 5k to the finish line. Did I say quick?
Well, there was some struggle involved.
The last few km's brought on the familiar pain and tightness in the
leg muscles that always creep up on me near the end of longer races.
But I found my zone, pumped my arms harder, and took shorter, quicker
steps - relieving some of the leg pain. This is what got me through.
When I saw the 750m sign and even the 400m sign, I knew I couldn't
sustain a finishing kick that long, but as soon as the finish line was
in sight - about 100m away - I gave it something extra. I finished the
21.1 km race in 1:50:29 (chip time), five minutes faster than last
year's performance. I was so happy to have beaten that time by so
much, and even more so because of how well the whole race went for me.
After some stretching, I felt fine, just a little stiff. I weathered
the race well.
I met up with my friends at the finish line - one was just a couple of
minutes behind me, and the other rolled in about eight minutes later.
Carbs, protein, and salt were definitely on the post race menu, so we
headed out for a beer and fish'n'chip lunch, which I polished off like
a ravenous wolverine. An excellent meal to celebrate an excellent
race. I'll be back in '08 for the next one (race that is... and meal,
too, I suppose).
My numbers:
Place overall: 1806 out of 2164
Gun Time: 1:51:40
Pace/km: 5:18
Chip Time: 1:50:29
Gender Place: 1342/3335
Age Group Place: 208/522
KM - Pace (didn't get every km's actual time but averaged some out)
1, 2 - average of 4:48/km each
3, 4, 5, 6 - av. 5:22 each
7 - 4:41 !
8 - 5:39
9, 10, 11, 12 - av. 5:29 ea.
13 - 4:30
14, 15 - av. 5:12 ea.
16 - 5:14
17 - 5:15
18 - 5:25
19, 20, 21 - av. 5:23/km ea.