Copy and Paste from my Personal RR:


Well, this is where it started to fall apart, pretty much as soon as the gun went off. I was seeded in between the 2:30 and 2:45 pace bunnies, which I thought was reasonable; I was aiming for a realistic B-Goal of 2:45 (A-Goal was a VERY ambitious 2:30, C-Goal of 3:00). I was consciously thinking, and being told by Brad, to not get caught up in the moment and to stay slow, re3ally focus on going slower than I thought I should be. Well, I went out and was keeping about a 5’00”/km pace, which I knew was way too fast, but I was feeling good... at the time. I managed to stay around the pace for a while, and crossed the 10k split in 52:17. I started to feel it at this point, so I knew that I had to slow down, so I slowed to my goal pace of 5’30”/km. At this point, I felt good. I skipped the first couple of aid stations, and started to take water around 10k. This was a mistake, as I didn’t have my Fuel Belt with me.

10k-15k was fairly uneventful. I was in a pretty good pack, keeping around 5’20”-5’30”/km, and sticking together. Nothing major to report from this split. My 15k split was 1:18:33.

As I mentioned, 18k is about where you start to hit the hills. I had done the hills in a training run, but I STARTED at the hills. It is very different to hit them after you’ve already run 18k. When Brad was telling me that the hills were hard, I didn’t really believe him. I do now. The first of the rolling hills hit me like a brick wall, and this is really where the wheels started to fall off. I was getting tired, and wanted to shed some layers, but it was going to be too complicated, so I just kept everything on. At this point, I hadn’t eaten anything, I hadn’t drunk enough, and my body was on its way to shutting itself down.

From 18k-23k, my body just kept getting worse. At this point, I had a few Power Bar jellies, but I didn’t know what was in the jellies, nutrition wise. I ended up eating 3 in the entire race. The whole packet (of about 10) was 190 kcal. Obviously, this is not enough. My energy started to fade, and I was starting to see the wall coming to hit me. My 20k split was 1:46:43.

Around 24k is where the whole thing blew up on me. My body was starting to rebel, and didn’t want to keep going. I was starting to walk more than I was hoping to (first time walking was around 21k, and that was really quick walk to eat the jellies). I was only able to run probably around 1k at a time before I needed to take a break. At this point, I was very far into my own head. I was becoming emotionally and mentally drained. My mind was racing about everything that I had been to in the past 2 years to make it possible for me to even fathom running 30k. I was so proud of myself to even be attempting it, but at the same time, I was disappointed that my body was giving up on me. With everything that I’d done, my body was never even close to giving up on me. Yet, even with the support of the crowd, it wasn’t possible for me to keep going. I was walk-running. I started to question myself around 25k, which is bad as you hit “The Hill” just before 26k. I told myself that I was going to run both down and up The Hill. I made it about ¾ of the way up before I had to stop and walk the rest of the way up.

After the hill, there is only 3.2kms left until the finish line. From this point on, I probably walked about ½ of the remaining distance. It was the longest 3k of my life. I had about 27 or so minutes to finish the 3k under 3 hours, and I was honestly worried that I wouldn’t make it. The thought of quitting actually crossed my mind, but luckily my mind is stubborn and wouldn’t let me. I could see Copps Coliseum, so I knew how close I was. I just kept running a couple of steps, and then walking, running, and then walking, until finally, FINALLY I crossed the finish line. According to the website, my chip time was 2:55:43, but I think it should be closer to 2:51:xx.

Post Race

Immediately after the race, I was done. I was a walking zombie. I grabbed everything that they were giving out, and found my supporters. I did a few stretches, ate a bunch to get some energy back, and then got driven home. I did some more stretches, ate some more, and started to feel more human. I took a shower, and then lay down for a little while. When I got up, I felt a lot better. I had dinner, hung out with fam and friends, and went to bed.
Immediately after the race, my hip flexors and calves were the sorest, but waking up on Monday morning, it was my right quad which really was getting to me. I had a massage planned, and she flushed out my legs, and really pushed into my back. After, I was tender, but feeling better. Hot bath to finish it all.

Post Race Thoughts

Coming out of the race, I learned a LOT about myself, my body, and about endurance racing. First off, I need to learn about nutrition. I didn’t think about it beforehand, and it hurt me having not. This will have to be fixed before Ottawa. Same thing goes for nutrition.

Also, going into the race, I think I was undertrained. I don’t think I really put in the miles which were required for the distance. I need to set up, and follow, a proper training program for this kind of a race. I didn’t respect the distance enough, and that caused me some problems.
Lastly, I really need to listen to my pace times. I started WAY too fast, and it blew up on me. I need to start thinking about negative splits, and paying attention to what I know is too fast for such a distance, especially when the race course is so much harder in the second half.

Overall, I am proud of myself for having the intestinal fortitude to finish, through all the problems that I was having. I am not happy with how I felt, and how it ended, but I can use it as a learning experience and do better next time around. It gave me a lot to think about, and I will have a bad experience to remember and prevent from happening in the future.


Everything. Watch pace out of chute, nutrition, hydration...

Nutrition, lack of training