Vancouver Sun Run

April 19, 2009

I was on the fence about doing this race simply because it looked like it would be a bit of a pain to spend the better part of the weekend over in Vancouver just for a 10k race. However, when I got the opportunity to travel over with the Victoria Select Team I decided to take it. I would like to thank Maurice Wilson from BC Athletics and Bob Reid from the Prairie Inn Harriers for the organizing and supporting myself and the other athletes from Victoria. We were well taken care of and I really appreciated the opportunity to participate in this race. In line with my race goals this year, my ultimate goal was get under 33 min, but I would be satisfied with a good race were I posted a time in the low to mid 33's.

Eight of us, including Kristopher Swanson, Nick Best, Sean Chester, Kevin Searle, Cheryl Murphy, Paul O'Callaghan, and Ian Hallam headed over together on Saturday afternoon. With the exception of Nick, I had never really had the opportunity to talk much with any of these runners so it was great to meet some new accomplished athletes. I was one of the slower runners in the van so it was good to put my performances in perspective. I have had some minor success as a runner, but there are still many people who would be embarrassed to run as slow as my best times. It is really helps to put things into perspective. We checked into the Hyatt Regency which is very conveniently located right beside the race start. I shared a room with Kevin and Craig Odermatt who would arrive later in the evening. After a lazy evening and dinner with the group at Milestones, I turned in hoping to get a solid sleep. Unfortunately, it was somewhat restless and didn't sleep as soundly as I would have liked.

The start line (my hair is in here somewhere)

The race start was 9am so I was down in front of the growing crowd of runners and walkers around 8:30. I did a quick warm up with Kevin and Sean and I felt a bit sluggish. I hoped this wouldn't be a bad sign. Because the race was so huge (around 50,000 registered) I was very glad to have a seated number and got to line up right near the front. When the run started, things were only congested for the first couple hundred meters which wasn't bad at all. As Nick posted in his blog it was amusing to watch a young guy blast off the line in front of all the elites. He lasted all of 200m before quickly falling back, but I guess he got his 20 seconds of fame. The first km of the course loses over 25m of elevation and is extremely fast. I covered the distance in 3:02 and the leaders were already 20+ sec ahead. Km 2 and 3 also passed quickly and under my goal pace of around 3:21. I felt reasonable, but did think that I was having to work a little harder than I would have liked at this point in the race. I have found that things should feel pretty comfortable for the first few km in a 10k race or else things may not turn out well.

My time dropped down to 3:33 on my 5th km as we climbed up to Burrard Bridge although as usual I fared well compared to the people around me on the climb. Things started to become uncomfortable after the 6km marker and this was not good news. 6km is too early in a 10k race to start loosing form. Unbenost to me at the time, Kevin was running a fantastic race and he caught up to me around 7km. I managed to stay with him for a while, but it was definitely a struggle to keep my pace. Luckily, I felt worse than what my times were indicating and I was still under a 3:30 pace. Kevin pulled away a little with about a km to go and while I attempted to reel him in on the little climb on Cambie Bridge I just didn't have enough left to do it. The finish is thankfully downhill and I finished with a decent 3:19 final km. I didn't have the gas for a sprint finish though and suffered in at 33:42 good for 50th overall and a surprising 4th in my age group. This was a 2sec PB for me compared to my 2008 Times Colonist. While I should perhaps not complain about a PB, I know that I can do better I would have liked to feel stronger. On the plus side, the fact that I didn't feel good, but was still able to squeak out a minor PB should be indicative of a somewhat better fitness level. I'll be able to test this at the Times Colonist this weekend. Results are here. There were an massive 42,563 finishers. Kevin set a PB of 45sec or so finishing 3sec ahead of me. The top finisher in our van was Kristopher finishing in an impressive under 30:53 which was good for 11th.

My splits were: 3:02, 3:15, 3:17, 3:28, 3:33 (16:35 5km split), 3:23, 3:28, 3:27, 3:29, 3:19 (16:39 5km split).

Sabino Canyon Sunset Run

April 4, 2009

I took a week vacation to visit my brother who lives in Tucson, Arizona part time and decided to add this little race in for something different. While it is a road race, it is a bit different in a couple of ways: it is an evening race (starting at 6pm), and it has an unusual distance of 7.4 Miles (11.9km).

Unfortunately, I came down with yet another cold a few days prior to this race. Thankfully, it was rather mild, but still sucked some energy out of my body. I spent the entire day before the race traveling and ended up arriving in Tucson very late due to aircraft delays. I didn't really know what to expect of my body because of the long trip, the end of the cold effects, the evening start time, and a totally different climate. By looking at previous results, I was able to get a rough idea of the level of competition that would likely be there although not knowing the course made prediction more difficult. It looked very likely that I would place in the top 10 barring a complete race meltdown and placing in the top couple of spots might be within reach.

Compared to racing on Vancouver Island where I always know at least a few people who are competing, arriving at a totally new venue where I knew no one except my brother (who doesn't run) was different. It reminded me of when I first started racing and knew very few people at the local races. Being a desert down there, I was a little worried that it would be too hot, especially considering how cold and miserable this year has been here. Luckily, however, it was actually quite cool and standing around with shorts and tank top was a little chilly due to some breeze.

The course was an out and back one on a road used for tourism vehicles and walkers only. The course turns around when the road ends which is why it distance it so unusual. The course description says it is uphill on the way up so I was expecting some mild grades up, but it turned out to be steeper than had thought (with about 250m in elevation gain total).

Within the first mile, I knew that this wasn't going to be a stellar race for me. The legs felt heavy and while I didn't feel horrible overall, nor did it feel easy as it should at the beginning of a race. The dry air was also unusual for me and left me with a parched mouth almost right away. As already mentioned, the course was primarily uphill with a couple of flats and dips here and there. I was in about 6th place for the first couple of miles and was battling it out with a guy on the climbs. Even though I was not feeling great, I was still able to climb reasonably well and would pass this guy on the uphills only to have him catch me and pass me back on the flats and dip. Unfortunately, around the 2.5 mile mark he pulled further ahead and I really started to suffer and was unable to respond. The final mile or so up the the turnaround at 3.7 miles was steep and I was really feeling the strain. Miles 2 and 3 were my slowest with splits of 6:40 and 6:38 respectively. During this portion of the climb, all I hoped to do was hang on and avoid being passed by any more runners.

One of the runners if front of me looked to be suffering even more than me, however, and I gradually gained on him up to the turn-around. At that point he and stopped at the aid station and slowed to a walk and looked like he was suffering from cramps. I passed him at that point and I'm unsure it he finished or not. Luckily, once we headed back down, I started to feel better and it looked like I would be able finish the last half fairly strong. I heard footsteps behind me for quite a while on the decent and with about one mile to go, the guy finally caught up to me. He gave me some encouragement saying something along the lines of "Come on stay with me!" Feeling that I did have something left in me, I took his advise and picked up my pace a bit moving ahead of him and then pushing hard on the small uphill before the final decent. I tried to pull far enough ahead that I hoped he couldn't close the gap. I ran hard to the line, finishing in 5th place in 43:22. It was not a great time for this distance, but was much hillier than the most comparable race I can think here which would be the Cedar 12K. I beat the 4th place guy (who quite coincidentally is a co-worker of my brother's girlfriend) by a small margin. Results are here. The first place finisher won in around 40:45. There were approx 400 finishers. A nice feature of the race was the pre-awards entertainment. They had a cowboy doing rope and gun tricks for a half hour while results were being tabulated. Having entertainment is a good idea that other races should consider emulating. My final splits were:
5:33, 6:01, 6:40, 6:38, 5:05, 5:28. 5:55, 2:02 (0.4 Miles).

Comox Valley Half Marathon

March 22, 2009

I had a little apprehension about this race in the couple of weeks out. I had been feeling a little sluggish since Bazan and had a couple of mediocre training runs. I was hoping a couple of days of rest before the race would rejuvenate my legs and lead to a decent race.

Sonja was also running this race so we decided to head up to Courtney on Sat to make a weekend of it and avoid the early start that would be required otherwise. This turned out to be a good idea as it was nice to be able to get up at 9am and only have a couple of minute commute to the start of the race. As this was Sonja's first time doing this race, we decided to drive the course the night before. I must say that it almost seemed longer driving it than running it although the hills were certainly less challenging on four wheels. I had run this race once back in 2006; not too long after I took up running in a more serious manner. It was my second half marathon ever and while ran a decent race for the condition I was in at the time, I remember it being enormously painful In addition, it completely wreaked my legs for close to a week. I hoped this time around would not be a repeat.

I did not perform a warm up as this distance does not seem to warrant it and conditions were not overly cold. My goal was to get under 1:16 (3:36 pace) for this race which would be about a 1 min improvement over my PB from RVM 2007. This was somewhat slower that what I should theoretically be able to run, but for this distance I figured it would be prudent to shoot for a slightly conservative time rather than regret my pace at the 10km mark.

When the race began the faster guys (Jonathan Withey, Mark Cryderman, Stefan Jakobsen, and Bryan Portman) quickly began to build a lead and I fell into a chase pack with at least a half a dozen other runners. We set brisk pace for the first 4km with times around the 3:30 mark. I knew that this was a little faster than my goal pace, but it felt comfortable and I knew that there were significant (if gradual) hills starting around the 6km mark that would eat into the pace. Gaining a few seconds here might be essential in keeping the overall time down. A few km in Hugh Trenchard broke away from our little pack and push forward to run with Bryan. Hugh is very strong at this distance so I knew that going after him might be folly.

As predicted, the pace began to slow as hillier portion of the course began and our little group started to string out and I was left running at the front along side Hicham Elamiri. Prior to the race Hicham mentioned that he was gunning for a 1:16 time so I felt I was in good company. From km 6-9 my times dropped closer to around 3:40 and bottomed out on the 8th km at 3:46. It wasn't steep, but it was long and it wore away at the legs. I was feeling pretty strong though and pushed it hard up the inclines. Partway up Hicham apparently had had enough and fell back a bit leaving me to try and chase down Bryan who had now fallen behind Hugh. I finally crested the high point in the course and we all had a brief downhill reprieve followed by about a km of flat before the turnaround (this was a fully out and back course).

I managed to catch up to Bryan before the turnaround and we ran together for a couple of km. I did enjoy the out and back time time more than usual as I got to see so many other racers as I headed back. We worked to get back up to the high point and then headed down. On the downhill Bryan poured on the speed and I just couldn't keep up. This is still the weakest part of my running. I just don't seem to have quite the stride length and/or leg turnover on downhill roads and easy trails as most other runners around my level. I was still moving pretty well, but I just couldn't coax anymore speed out of my body. Despite my lack of good downhill speed I still posted a 3:20 on the steepest downhill section. Partway down the hill Chris Barth caught up to me and we ran together for a good number of kms. Our pacing stayed consistent until the 16th km marker where it slowed slightly to around 3:40 although this is part due to a slight uphill grade.

I worked hard at keeping a steady pace despite the fact that things were starting to hurt somewhat. Chris fell back a bit around the 18km mark as he was apparently having some calf pain and I was on my own again with Bryan around 30 sec ahead. I stayed steady around 3:40 for the next two km and at the 20km marker, still feeling relatively strong, I put a surge on trying to reel in Bryan. I made up some significant time on him, but I probably should have started with 2km to go as I just didn't have enough time to catch up and he ended up beating me by 14sec. I finished in 1:15:21, good for 6th place overall and a new PB by over a min and a half. I was also happy that I felt strong throughout the race and finished strong. I am also quite pleased that I was able to have a solid performance at this distance on a relatively low mileage program. There is ongoing controversy over quantity vs. quality in training and as with most things the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. However, it is definitely possible to get respectable performances even on longer races with approx 50km weeks. Would I perform better on 100km weeks? Perhaps. I haven't tried so I don't know if it would lead to faster times or instead to injury or burnout.

Jonathan won the race in a very solid time of 1:11:48 and Sara Gross picked up the female win in 1:22:04. Some other notable performance were made by Nancy Baxendale who picked up the Masters title and came second female overall, Mike Janes who shaved over 6min off his 2008 time, Jeff Hunt who came in under 1:26 in his first race back from injury, and by Sonja (Yli-Kahila) who set a PB of over 5min. Results are here.

My final splits were 3:28, 3:33, 3:30, 3:31, 3:35, 3:37, 3:39, 3:46, 3:43, 3:35, 3:38, 3:36, 3:31, 3:20, 3:31, 3:31, 3:39, 3:41, 3:42, 3:37, 3:39 (1.1km).

Bazan Bay 5K

March8, 2009

Three seconds...that was how close I came to getting my goal of under 16min on this race! I kicked myself a little for not trying just that little bit harder to get those few seconds. Had I looked at my watch or seen the clock at the finish I might have been able to do it, but it's always easier to say after the race that you thought you could do better.

"If only I had pushed harder...surged sooner...blah...blah" How easy it is to forgot how much pain you were really in at the time.

Anyway, I digress. The Bazan Bay 5K is race number five in the Island Race Series. It boasts the flattest course of the series and therefore it is possible to run some great times here. So far this is the only race where I have scored over 800 points (a points system used to compare races of different distances out of 1000 total). It also attracts a strong field with a number of National Triathlon Centre (NTC) members coming out to assess their fitness.

Unlike all the other Island Series races which start at 11am, Bazan starts at 9am and this was unfortunately compounded by the fact the we shifted to Daylight Savings on Sat night. Despite the fact that I slept well, it wasn't for long enough and struggled to fully wake up upon arriving at the race around 8am. Luckily, a coffee seemed to help and by the start time I was feeling better. A good sized pack including Scott Simpson and the 2000 and 2008 Olympic medalist in the triathlon, Simon Witfield, went out predictably hard. I found myself in a chase pack with another 10 runners or so. The first km (which I think is a few meters short) flew by in 3:05 - a good start. Now the plan was to stay as close to my 3:12 pace goal as I could.

I moved ahead in the chase pack and was soon running with Mark Cryderman. I was 3 sec back of the 3:12 pace at the 2km marker. Km 2-3 includes the turn around in this out and back course and I lost some time here since I had to slow down for the runner in front of me. Turn-arounds are a challenge as they take you out of your rhythm and force to you accelerate back to your race pace. I was still feeling fairly strong at this point and thought I had a reasonable chance to attain my goal if I could keep the legs moving.

I started to feel the strain around 3.5km and this is where the race can break you if you went out too hard. Mark and I reeled in Sean Chester, who had intentionally gone out hard and looked to be suffering. I split 4km in 12:53 which a few seconds back of where I wanted to be. I dug deep in the last km and as always, it hurt. Mark had more left for final straight away than I did and beat me to the line by 5sec. I put in a final surge, but I was somewhat disappointed that I was not able to to mount a complete sprint. My official finishing time was 16:02, good for 10th overall and 3rd in my age group. While just shy of my goal, I am still satisfied with my result since it is a PB for me (8sec faster than last year) and is a points all time personal best for me (by a narrow margin). My splits were 3:05, 3:16, 3:18, 3:14, 3:10.

Scott and Simon battled it out for the overall win and I hear their sprint to the finish was pretty impressive with the lead being swapped a couple of times. Scott ended up winning by a margin of less than a second in a course record time of 14:37. It is interesting to note that this is "only" 1:25 faster than my time. For a for a non runner, this may seem like a small difference, but in reality the amount of training and effort needed attain that kind of speed (if you even have the physiology to get there) is huge. The woman's titles was taken by NTC member Lauren Groves in a time of 17:02. Ultra runner Myke Labelle had a very good race coming in in 16:19. Final Results.

After the race, I headed directly over to UVic for an orienteering race held by the Victoria Orienteering Club. I felt it was time to get some navigation practice for the upcoming May MOMAR in Squamish which I will be racing solo. The event of the day was a urban sprint race with 16 controls that must be done in order. I made an error that cost me a minute or so on the second control, but had a fairly clean race otherwise and my speed served me well getting me though the course in 24:37, good for 1st overall (the top orienteering talent was absent). Orienteering is a very challenging sport and I need a lot more practice in route planning and code reading, but fortunately, navigation on the MOMAR's tends to be easier than most orienteering courses.

Hatley Castle 8K

February 22. 2009

The Hately Castle 8K takes place at Royal Roads University located in Colwood. For those who have never been to the university it is worth the trip both for the good assortment of trails as well as the castle and gardens. This race is the oddball of the Island Race Series as it is the only race which has trails and gravel roads (half the course is off pavement). This fact, combined with some decent elevation gain (for a this type of race) creates a course that is more difficult than a standard 8K. Setting a PB here is not an easy task. Since hills tend to be one of my strengths, I have typically done well compared to other racers in previous years even if my times have unspectacular. I kind of like this course as it offers something a little different.

My training has been going well up to this race and I had been putting about 6 hours of quality running in on my non racing weeks and about half that on alternate weeks. This is low for many people, but a little more than I have averaged in the past. I had also been sleeping well so felt that I was capable of putting in a good effort. My goal was to get under 28min which would be a modest improvement over last year.

This course has a downhill start and consequently the field moves out very quickly. Even though I have seen it numerous times, I am still surprised how often I see a bunch of guys go out at a pace way harder than they can sustain. In this case, I was about 10th at 200m and by 1.5km I had moved into 4th. Psychologically I think it would be tough to race like that and lose so many positions right away. I don't believe that it leads to the best race performance either. I can't say that I have run all my races properly either, but I am getting a lot better at it. It seems that woman tend to be much more conservative in their racing which probably ends of being less painful for them.

Just like at Cedar, Scott Simpson, Eric Findlay, and Sean Chester were all in attendance at this race and they soon sorted themselves out in that order. From previous experience I knew that the first km was very fast followed by a slower km up a grade to a turnaround. The first three quarters of the third km gives everyone a bit of a respite before heading into the steepest climb of any Island Series Race. The first km passed in the expected brisk 3:12. As mentioned previously, I had reeled in the 4th place position held by Chris Barth 1.5km. Hugh Trenchard was on my shoulder so I knew that I was running at an appropriate pace. Chris joined our little group and I led the way out to the turnaround and back to the base of the big climb. I've heard lots of complaining about this hill and how tough it is, but I really don't find it that bad. In fact, because it is proceeded by some downhill grade, it was only my 4th slowest split on the race. The best trick is to just get onto your toes and lean into it - its almost over before you know it.

Nearing the top of the 'big' hill with Hugh and Chris. Photo credit: Garth Campbell

After the hill there is a km of fairly flat paved road. Here I was hoping to get a split around my goal pace of 3:30. I took the split and looked a my time: 3:38! "What the hell was that?" I was feeling good and it had seemed like I was moving well so I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. Fortunately, at this point I was only 4 sec off my goal time due to the fast first km. I figured that as long as I could stay near 3:30 for the next couple of km I could make up some lost time on the downhill section after 6km. The course turned to a gravel road and headed out to another turnaround, came back towards oncoming racers and then quickly turned onto a wide trail in the forest.

Despite continuing to feel strong I was dismayed to see the next two km pass in 3:34 and 3:40 respectively. "Sh*t!" Nearly 20 sec behind my goal at this point, it felt like my goal was slipping away and I would be lucky to tie my time from last year. Had I actually written my splits down from last year however, I probably would not have worried quite so much. If I race here again next year I will have it documented exactly! Km 6-7 is nearly all downhill and includes a significantly steep downhill pitch. This section can be hammered hard and is not too punishing on the body because it is gravel. The km flew by in 3:08 gaining me back what I had lost over the last few km. The last km is not easy with a mild, but challengingly placed hill a few hundred meters from the finish. Luckily, the very last section is downhill and everyone can put on a nice sprint to the line.

I finished in 27:56 and fortunately I had managed to put some time between myself and Hugh and Chris over that last half of the course held on to my 4th place position. This was 21 sec better than my 2008 time and I finished feeling pretty strong. Unsurprisingly, Scott smoked the course in 25:19 and Cheryl Murphy picked up another win in the woman's division. Results are here. My complete splits were 3:12, 3:38, 3:35, 3:38, 3:34, 3:40, 3:08, and 3:33. The Bazan Bay 5K is on March 8 and I'm hoping to break the 16min barrier on a nearly pancake flat course there. Happy running!

Cedar 12k

February 12, 2009

Cedar is a small community located just south of Nanaimo. It has hosted this Island Race Series race since 1982 (the course used to be 15k up to 1999). While the course is one that includes a couple of significant hills reasonable times are still possible here and I've never run a bad race here.

To save fuel and make the trip more interesting, Sonja and I car-pooled up with fellow Harriers Brent Chan, Gary Duncan and Claire Morgan. It is always fun to ride with a bunch of runners who never get tired of constant running talk. How many normal people could stand hours of talk about PB's, negative splits, and 3:45km pacing without their eye's rolling back in their head? We made good time in light Sunday morning traffic and arrived with plenty of time to do all the pre-race preparation.

My legs had been feeling pretty tired on the week leading up to this race (probably a result of a relatively high mileage the previous week), but since I had taken the time to recover I was hoping that fatigue would not play a role in this race. My goal was to beat my time of 41:49 from 2008 which would mean running a under 3:29 pace.

I spotted a few fast runners as we lined up for the start. Scott Simpson, Eric Findley, Sean Chester, and Stefan Jakobsen were all likely to run fast races. The course is basically a out and back one with the exception of the first kilometer which follows a U shape and is not repeated on the return. Upon the race start, Scott, Sean, and Eric went out fast as expected along with Mark Cryderman and Neil Holm. Right away I found myself running in a good sized pack of about 10 racers. I find it good to run with one or two other racers who can help push/pull you along, but I really do not like running in a pack, particularly not when I am in the middle of it. I feel boxed in and often get my heels stepped on. In retrospect I think I should have tried to push a little harder to get out of the pack sooner than I did because not only did I not really like it, but I think it also limited my speed for the first 1.5km or so. The pace felt positively pedestrian at first even though it wasn't slow (3:24 for the first km) and had I been on my own I would have probably gone out 5-10 seconds faster. I'll never know if that faster pace would have hurt me later in the race or not.

Running with the pack at the 1km marker. Photo Credit: Erin Burrett

In any case, by the second km the pack had started to break up a bit and I found myself out front of it running with Mark Nelson and Stefan. I figured that this was a good place to be as Mark is having a great season so far and edged me out at Cobble while I have yet to beat Stefan who is an accomplished triathlete. Kilometers 2-5 went by in relative comfort and speed which was aided by a couple of downhill downhill sections. The sixth kilometer had slight uphill grade which slowed my split to 3:35, but did not worry me much as I was still right in with Mark and Stefan so I knew that my relative effort had not changed. I saw the 5 runners in front of us as we neared the turn around at 6.5km. Scott probably had 1.5 minutes on us at this point and would add a couple more before then end of the race.

I continued to feel strong and managed to keep on or under my goal pace until hitting the hills. The steepest hill is at 9km and definitely makes you work to get to the the top while trying not to totally leave yourself breathless. I like to push hard on hills, but this can sometime backfire if I end up having nothing upon reaching the top and then can't recover. Luckily this was not the case this time. Stefan and I pulled a little away from Mark on the hill and I kept the pressure up. I knew that while there was no guarantee that I would beat either of them I was going to make them work for it. The final hill at 10.5km actually looks worse than it is following by a slight down slope which allows you to get the legs moving pretty good. Stefan was just behind me when we hit the 11km marker and I decided to see if I could pick the pace up for the final km. I would have to say that the last few hundred meters of this course is probably the hardest because it moves onto a grass field which saps energy at a time when it is in very short supply. It also includes a tiny hill that would normally not be noteworthy, but with 150m to go everyone feels it. Even though I put a decent surge on for the entire final km, I thought that Stefan and/or Mark might try to put on a charge to try and overtake me, but luckily they did not. I hit the line at 41:31, good for 6th place and a 18 sec improvement on my 2008 time. This race felt better than any I have had for a while and was certainly better than Pioneer or Cobble so I actually thought my time would have been faster than it was. I would have preferred to see a 30-45 sec improvement over last year as that would have positioned me well to get close to 33min at the Sun Run or Times Colonist. Overall though, I am happy to run a smart race and feel good doing it. Results are here. My final splits were: 3:24, 3:25, 3:24, 3:28, 3:21, 3:35, 3:28, 3:25, 7:07 (missed the 9km marker), 3:32, 3:22. Sonja had a very good day, shaving more than 4 minutes off her 2007 time and fellow Harrier Mike Janes also ran a excellent race and took over 4 minutes off his 2008 time. Now if only I could see such improvements!

Cobble Hill 10K

January 25, 2009

Cobble is the 2nd of the Island Race Series. This is the second year at this particular location, previously, the race was held in Mill Bay on what I believe was a slightly more difficult course. I was hoping race conditions would be a bit better than last year when there was frost on a portion of the course.

This was my first 10k of the year and I was hoping to produce a good race that would help motivate me to work hard to achieve my 33min 10 goal. Unfortunately, I have been unlucky in my battle with viruses this winter and came down with a bit of a bug the day before the race. I basically lazed around all Saturday feeling crappy and thinking that would not race on Sunday. I see little point in racing while sick because in addition to feeling worse than normal during the race, my performance is almost sure to be less than stellar. Luckily for me, I had a good sleep Saturday and woke up feeling decent. I wasn't quite 100%, but felt good enough to put on a decent effort.

Cobble Hill attracts a much less competitive field than Pioneer, but there still ended up being 15 runners dipping under 35min which is not bad at all. The National Triathlon Centre seems to use this race for training as 10 of their members also came out to race (4 of them placing in the top 10). There was going to be plenty of competition for me.

There was a huge line up at the day of race registrations I was was happy that I was already signed up. I think there was something like 150 day of registrations. Are there that many people who just can't make of their mind ahead of time?

I did a warm up with Sonja which felt pretty mediocre. My legs felt heavy and I just was not really into the racing mentally at that point. Still, I have felt bad before a race before and still ended up having a good race so I have learned from experience to not worry about it too much. The weather was cool, but freezing and although there had been a dusting of snow the night before it was fully melted on the road surface.

The start and finish line was moved up a hundred meters or so up the road from where it was last year. I suspect that this was to help alleviate the congestion that occurred last year because the side road was fairly narrow. The change should have made little difference to the course since the extra distance was made up in the out and back section of the course.

The race started promptly at 11am and as seems usual these days I got jostled a bit from racers eager to push to the front despite the fact that I was in the front row. Perhaps I should be more aggressive although I see little point in wasting my energy off the line since the first km is always fast anyway. One guy who looked to be in his 50's positively sprinted off the line and shared the lead with Todd Howard for the first hundred meters or so. His strategy was a bit baffling to me as within a couple hundred meters, he had fallen back behind me. His moment of glory perhaps?

Once I began the race, I realized that I felt reasonable and that that it was at least not going to be a disaster. From Cobble Hill Rd, the course heads south on a side road for a quick out and back of under 2km. The first two km passed rather quickly in 3:16 and 3:15, but this was primarily because there was more downhill than uphill. During the climb back up to Cobble Hill Rd I lost some of that time again dropping to below my goal pace of 3:24 (34min finish time) and posting a 3:29. I soon found myself running in a pack with three others: Mark Nelson, Hugh Trenchard, and Nicholas Bocherens. This was a good thing because over the next several km we traded places in the lead helping us pull each other along.

The course has a slight grade uphill until 5km or so and recorded my slowest time on the 5th km despite the fact that I was pulling the group along at this point and pushing fairly hard. My 5km split was 17:04 just shy of the 34 min goal. Unfortunately, after the halfway point I started to struggle a bit and km 6-9 where each off my pace goal by a few seconds. It doesn't help that there a small rolling hills on this part of the course. The race brochure says this is a flat course, but that is misleading and I would describe it as undulating as there are definitely a number of small hills. Around 7km our little pack started to splinter and I was left falling off the back, never the place you want to be. Mark was having a great race and was pulling significantly ahead. I struggled to stay in touch as it can be mentally very difficult to bridge any significant gap on the later stages or the race. At 9km I forced myself to kick it into a higher gear and aided by some slight downhill I managed to make up some time and pass Nicholas and then Hugh with a few hundred meters to go. Unfortunately, Mark was too far ahead to run down in the time that I had, but I was happy to at least have a better final km than at Pioneer. I finished in 34:20, a little off the 34min I was gunning for and less than what I know I am capable of. However, considering I almost didn't run at all, it wasn't bad and I did manage to take 8 seconds off of my time from last year. My final list of splits were 3:16, 3:15, 3:29, 3:26, 3:38, 3:31. 3:26, 3:30, 3:31, and 3:17. I've now made my C Standard Goal, but feel that I am farther from my A and B goals than I would like. I've decided to add another hour or two of quality running to my weekly schedule in the hopes that it will produce results.

Todd Howard won in 31:53, while the woman's title was picked up by Cheryl Murphy in 35:37, quite impressive considering she is also a master. Sonja set a new PB, running in under 45min and fellow Harriers Brent Chan and Chris Callendar also ran their best times at this distance. Another Harrier, Gary Duncan, conducted an interesting analysis comparing times for the top 150 male and female performances from this year compared to last (57 ran both races) and came to the conclusion that the average time this year was 9 seconds slower than last year. This is a bit surprising since conditions where definitely worse last year, but maybe most people are just not training enough!