Mississauga Half Marathon
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Mississauga Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon
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Comments: Goal time going into the race was realistically 1:37, with a 1:35 as a stretch target. Unrealistic goal was a 1:33. With the rain and expected winds, I'd kind of thrown out the stretch target and told myself just to shoot for the 1:37 - keep an even pace, but allow myself to speed up on the down hills. 2 minutes before the gun goes off and I need the bathroom - again. Seriously, I don't know what the issue is with my bladder and race day nerves but I can't help it. Off we go and I notice that my HR spikes straight off, so I know I'm in for a high HR day, but I figure this should't be much of a factor, I'll just look at it occasionally, but focus on pace. My first km is a bit slow, and I realize this is no longer a training run and I'm going to have to put in a harder effort. Luckily there's some downhill to the run, so I catch my pace up to where it should be within a couple of km - I also shed the arm warmers. But by km 5 I'm really feeling the need to stop - lucky for me someone exits a porta potty right around km 6, and I jump in there, and feel a whole lot better after. Now I had to catch up to those that were running around me so I didn't lose too much time. Km 7 & 8 are pretty quick as I look to make up the lost time, and at the same time I pick up a pacer. Older guy running in the mid 4:20's, and I run with him for the next 6-7km. We caught and passed the group I was pacing with previously, my legs felt good, so I stuck with this guy. Those km's went by pretty fast, and I only lost a little bit of time on the only major hill. I also noticed during this time that no-one had passed me since I'd hooked up with my new running pal, we just kept picking people off one by one. Then, inexplicably at a water station around km 13 I grabbed a drink and kept running, and he pulled off, I didn't see him again. At this point, I knew I was running a solid time and just kept going. There were less and less people in front of me but I continued to pass a few other runners. With 5km to go I dropped the pace into the low 4:20's and held on against the wind during the last 3km. That last km seemed like it was going to take forever, and I hadn't looked at my overall time on my watch simply because I didn't know how much time I lost with my bathroom break. Seeing the clock read in the mid 1:33's as I crossed the finish was an awesome feeling. I had not really thought I was going to be capable of that kind of run. Beat my only other 1/2 marathon time by 8 minutes. It all came together really well on race day. What would you do differently?: Nothing - could I have gone out faster, probably, but I don't know that I could have finished as strongly. I'm not second guessing anything about this run. Post race
Warm down: Walked around a little, met up with a couple of different groups of friends and saw some others finish. What limited your ability to perform faster: Nothing. I followed an 18 week plan to get ready for this race, and it served me really well. I also think the fact I did almost all my long runs the day after a longer bike helped the legs. Training on fatigued legs and then racing on fresh legs - I could feel the difference. Event comments: I may be back next year looking for another PB. Last updated: 2010-10-26 12:00 AM
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2011-05-15 7:00 PM |
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2011-05-15 8:05 PM in reply to: #3500417 |
2011-05-16 8:21 AM in reply to: #3500417 |
2011-05-16 8:38 AM in reply to: #3500417 |
2011-05-16 2:24 PM in reply to: #3500417 |
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Canada
9C / 48F
Precipitation
Overall Rank = 128/3430
Age Group = 35-39
Age Group Rank = 17/198
Up at 5:30am and arrived at the race site by 6:30. Managed to get a great parking spot right at the start line. Tried eating a bit, but race nerves meant I didn't have much of an appetite. Visited the porta potties a couple of times, but it turns out it still wasn't enough.
Nothing, just paced back and forth a bit and tried to stay loose, but it was tricky since it was rather cold and wet.