Bazan Bay 5 km

March 7, 2010

I'm again more than a week late for my race report - but life has been more than hectic lately with lots of things going not, including a small home improvement project, that is not really that small: redoing the flooring in our condo -- putting in laminate.  We've had some great assistance- but it all still takes time.

Now to the race.  This was my third race in the Island Race series, and for once I wasn't too nervous going into it.  I hadn't raced  5km in 3 years, so I knew that at the very least I would be able to get a P.B (personal best).  It was nice going into a race knowing that I had improved my speed enough over the last three years to know unless somethihng serious happened, I would get the coveted P.B.

The night before the race, Shane and I were looking at the race calculator, which provides predictions on how fast you should be able to run a race at a given distance based on your performance at other distances.  I plunked in my time from the Cobble Hill 10km and the result I got for 10km was just over 20min.  Wow - that seemed fast, I thought.  This then got into my head that I could run a 20min 5 km!  I hadn't been nervous, but now thinking about this new goal, nervousness started to creep into me.

The morning of the race I felt extremely groggy and tired.  I had a bit of coffee to try and perk me up, fit in a very quick warm-up and then soon enough the race was on.  Right from the start I felt good.  My legs weren't tired and I felt like they could hold a good pace.  I had passed the first km marker on my warm-up, so I knew when to expect it.  For kms 2-4 we ran along Lochside Drive, right next to the ocean. It was a beautiful location, which I had no chance to appreciate.  By about km 1.5 the group I was running around had settled into place.  There was one man who I was running around, and he would pick up the pace for a bit, and then I would pass him for a bit.  Just after the turn-around (just before the 3 km marker), he passed me for the final time, and my goal was simply to stay as close to him as possible.  I was still feeling pretty good, and the run was not feeling taxing yet.

Soon enough we were at the final km.  This is where the race started to hurt.  My body was starting to feel the race and wanting me to slow down.  But, I was determined to push on - my racing partner was still just ahead of me, and I had kept with him as he had passed a number of runners.  The last 500 meters included two turns - with the last one following about 200m until the finish line.  While this is not actually a long distance, that 200m couldn't come soon enough.  Coming up to the finish line, I heard someone call out 'Go Sonja, you can get under 20 minutes!'.  Wow, I thought -- so I made a final push, and passed a few runners right near the finish line.  As I looked at the clock, I saw 19:50 flash before my eyes.  I was ecstatic!  This was beyond my expectations, and I was so excited to get under that 20 minute mark -- one of the big milestones.  My previous time at the 5km distance was 22:43.

My official finishing time was 19:52, and I ended up being second in my age category.  Making these achievements is what makes racing so fun and addictive.  As long as I keep improving, it will be difficult to stop racing. My splits were: 3:50; 4:02; 4:00; 4:02; 3:57.

The overall winner of the race was Simon Whitfield -- I never actually saw him, and didn't even recognize him when I watched the leaders after the turn-around.  He finished in 14:36.

Shane also had a pretty good race, and finished in 15:47 - a P.B. too and just after his goal time of 15:45 for that race.

Next- the Comox Half-Marathon this upcoming Sunday -- hopefully all goes well.  Yesterday I ran 3 X 1 mile at the track, at half-marathon pace -- but my miles ended up being close to 10km pace (6:40 per mile).  It felt good, and maybe one day this will be my half-marathon pace!