›  Admin
  add this
Sunday September 05 2010
 

Chilly Willy Half Marathon 2009 - Race Report

Printer friendly version Posted on: Monday November 30 10:04:56 PM

You heard it her first - I have a strange skill.

 

What is this strange skill you ask? The ability to run a long race on the same course for the same amount of time as the previous year. It happened first this year at the Goodlife Marathon, where I ran 3:35:02 for the 2nd consecutive year. Not intentionally I swear, not even while looking at my watch and altering my pace in the slightest.

 

This weekend, it happened again. I did not look at my watch the entire race. I decided since I was tired from Saturday's 8k XC race, that fatigue would be a factor and that I would just run as hard as I thought I could handle and see where it gets me. Sure enough, I headed to the finish area, around the final turn and boom, the clock read 1:34:xx. I immediately thought it was similar to last year and had a little chuckle. Anita pointed out after the race that it was exactly the same as last year. 1:34:41 -Weird.

 

Anyway, as I mentioned, I ran this race without a real goal, just the hopes that I could run around 1:35:00 on tired legs. The weather was near perfect, a bit chilly (ironically) and no wind. By km 3 I threw off my hat and gloves with intentions to grab them later on, and was glad I ended up choosing to stay in shorts.

 

At 5k, I was in 26th spot (I counted the runners passing me by on the 5k turnaround point. I made a point to aim at top 20. After 3k, I had been in about 35th but quickly got by many runners who started out way too fast.

 

The course is very convoluted. We first run a loop by the waterfront, part of the Mississauga Marathon finish, then head out to a street that leads to more run/bike trails, where we head back to do the first loop again, continuing on to do a different loop bythe waterfron (close to the water by the Mississauga Marathon post race food area.

 

After that loop we repeated what we'd already run. I find it hard to repeat a section of a course as you are covering ground that eralier, did not feel that hard. Now I was tired and having to do it again. It was nice to pass by Anita a few times as we looped back. According to post race Garmin watch analysis, I did the first 10K in 44:26, the 2nd 10k in 45:30 and the final 1.1 km in 5:50. Pretty decent times for old tired legs. I didn't really expect to do this well. It definitely made up for the dissapointing finish the day before.

 

22nd overall, out of about 100, but 8th in my 40+ age category so we avoided heading back to the Mississauaga Canoe club for post race festivities as there would be no medal for me this year. The race had about 40 more runners this year, unfortunately a lot of them strong 40+ runners!

 

As for Anita, I will let her tell her own story. It is an interestinf one. Watch the Froum for her remarks.

 

No races this weekend...thankfully, I need a rest!


Like This Post?Like This
 COMMENT 
 Posted by Dave on: Monday November 30 10:04:56 PM

Comments:

There are no comments for this post