First and foremost, a special thank you to those of you who were able to support my fundraising endeavor with the Sporting Life 10K for Kids With Cancer. With your help, I raised $645 and our team raised almost $18,000. This year's event raised more than $800,000 for Camp Oochigeas.
I had dinner on Saturday evening with my friend Erin and little Nolan as well as some other team members. We had a great time chatting about the race and I picked up my honorary Nolan's Dream Chasers team shirt (see below). I laid out my gear, attached the new single-use chip to my laces and turned in early for a 5:00AM wake-up call.
After our little fiasco with the car keys I was feeling more than a little frazzled when it was time to line up. Fortunately, I was able to push it out of my mind for the duration of the race.
I was seeded in the red corral, 40 to 48 minutes. My official goal was anything sub- 49:10 (last year's time and PR), but had an unofficial goal of 48:00 in my head.
The race was very crowded (10,000+ finishers) but I seemed to have positioned myself correctly and didn’t have to do a lot of weaving (nor did I get passed constantly). I got into a comfortable rhythm and pace quickly.
It was a mild, sunny morning (about 10C/50F to start) and I immediately felt warm in my 3/4 pants and short sleeve top. Shade from the tall buildings lining Yonge Street offered welcome relief in some areas.
It became apparent early on that the GPS signal on my Garmin was poor, likely due to said tall buildings. My watch was ahead by about 20 metres at the first kilometre marker, a couple hundred metres by the half way point and more than one kilometre by the end of the race. Just take a look at this map that it plotted:
I knew I couldn't rely on the Garmin to hold my pace, so I started using it simply to check the time at each kilometre marker. I didn't think to use the lap button until well into the race, so unfortunately I don't have splits. However, I do remember that my 5K time was right around 24 minutes. I thought to myself, just hold on to it.
And I did!
I still felt pretty good through most of the second half, but struggled a bit through the 6th and 7th kilometres (probably because there were no markers [or I missed them] and I had no idea how much farther I had to go). My mouth felt really dry but I skipped all water stations except the last one (km 7-ish?) where I grabbed a cup and took a quick swig.
When I finally saw the 8K flags and glanced at my time, I knew I had a good shot at reaching my goal and held on tight. Soon enough we rounded the bend into Fort York and I gave it all I had, passing several people and gunning it right through the finish line.
Gun time: 48:48
Watch time: 48:03
Chip time: 47:59.6 (made it by a hair!)
4:48/km (7:43/mi)
F25-29: 74/1175 (93.7%)
Gender: 374/5886 (93.6%)
Overall: 1864/10744 (82.7%)
The National Post has video footage of all finishers, but I couldn't spot myself in the sea of people. That might be a good thing; I'm sure it wasn't pretty.
(My speedy hubby finished in 41:27.)
Thanks for reading!
23 comments:
You are getting so speedy!! Congratulations on an amazing PR!!! (And to your hubby too.) Sounds like a great race, and thank goodness you got the car keys back.
Way to go!!! That is a great time!!!
Congrats on meeting your goal!! Excellent race for both you & the hub - YEAY!!
You rock, amazing job, and SERIOUSLY FAST TIME!!
Lesson learned about the Garmin thing for me (although I don't know if I could have ran any faster!)
I want to check out the finish line video, but I too, am afraid. I am sure mine is not pretty either!LOL
I saw Jackie and I on the finishing video... but only for a second. I totally forgot they did that! Congrats to you two, and for raising the money for a great cause! How sweet that Nolan crossed the line!
Congrats again! Thanks for the video link...I found me and DH. Blurry, but there! :)
Awesome job on the speedy 10K! You are a PR machine. :)
What a great cause and awesome race! Congrats to your hubby too.
Great job on the awesome race, Marlene. You kicked that PR's butt!
Awesome job! And a medal to boot!
great race!! you're a fast one!!
WOW you and your husband are Speed 1 and Speedy 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great picture of you two also :) CONGRATS!!! woo-woo!!!!!!!!!
that map from your garmin is rediculous! it made it seem like you were leaping over those tall builings.
Way to go!! Congrats, you did so well!! Great pics you shared, too!
Congrats on your PR. You are fast!!
Great job on the race! That map the garmin plotted is funny! Congrats again on the PR! you have really made a strong comeback!
Awesome pics! Love the report and especially love the Garmin map, looks like you run over under or thru some buildings! :)
Way to hit your target!! Great job. It was crowded.
Sounds like a great race, that is a lot of people!
CONGRATS again Marlene! You totally kicked that course's butt!!
yay way to beat your goal! nice job and great race! you mean you didn't run through all the tall buildings? garmin doesn't lie... ;) congrats on an awesome race
Well done! Everyone had problems with their Garnmin. It was a day for a Polar---assuming it was correctly calibrated, which mine was not, as it showed only 5.51 miles rather than 6.21.
They need to do something about the finish chute--it was way too congested for both heart patients needing a proper cooldown and anyone with claustrophobia!
Hi there and congrats on your performance! It looks like you had an excellent day back then.
I ran that race as well in 2009. I was wondering, have you saved by any chance a copy of the video footage of all finishers? The link you posted no longer works.
This was my first running race ever and I would like to have that video.
Either way, thanks.
Adrian
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