TC 10km

April 25, 2010

This was one of my hardest races this year.  I've had a good year of racing, not only in getting a lot of PBs, but also in the way that I have felt during my races.  I've felt strong and while pushing myself, I didn't feel like I was totally dying.  However, that changed with this race.  It felt hard from the start - and it didn't get any easier throughout the race.

This is the largest 10km race in Victoria, and the second largest race of this distance in Canada.  This year, it attracted over 13,000 registrants.  It's a great community event, but is definitely a different atmosphere than the smaller island series races.  It also attracts a much deeper field, and this year didn't dissappoint - with many fast racers at this year's event, including Simon Whitfield, Steve Osaduik, Scott Simpson, Jim Finlayson, David Jackson, Lucy Smith, Lisa Harvey, Kristina Rodey a number of Kenyan runners [including the winner from last year: Willy Kimosop and his training partner Kip Kangogo (the ultimate winner of the race this year)] and a fast woman from Poland:  Karolina Jarzynska, who ended up being the fastest female on the course.

With the huge number of runners and walkers, the beginning of the race can get quite crowded.  Luckily, I was able to start near the front, and I didn't have to fight the crowds too much. The number of racers didn't slow me down any, as I was able to keep to the side and run my race at my speed. 

My goal for this race was to better my time from the Cobble Hill 10km in January  (41:58), and I was hoping to get close to 41:30 -- this would put me at about 4:09 per km.  I knew that my first km would start off fast - and I hoped that any faster kms I posted in the beginning wouldn't hurt me in the end.  This was the first race of the year where I was under  more pressure - as I had a real time goal in mind that I knew would be challenging to meet, and would require me to really push it.  Due to my desired time, I tried to go as fast as I thought I could handle - but didn't look at my splits.

From the start I knew it wasn't going to be easy - my breathing was laboured pretty much off the start and the run didn't feel as relaxed as previous races had.  The kms went by, people passed me, and I definitely was not feeling fast.  The nice thing about this race, is that there's lots of spectators, so I heard my name called out a number of times -- which is always uplifting.  After the turnaround, and closing in on km-5, there's a small hill that's not that huge, but definitely hurts and slows you down.  The next two kms are quite slow, as there's a gradual uphill - and for me they were definitely slow.  Sandra Mullen, from PIH, passed me around the 5km mark - she's a strong racer, and I tried to stay with her.  She got some time on me, but I was determined not to let her get too far away.  This extra bit of motivation was good to keep me from totally falling apart.

Kilometer 7-8ish is mostly slightly downhill, and I definitely felt it - glad for the little bit of help along the way.  Finally I hit the 8km mark - thankfully, only 2 kms to go.  I could hardly wait for the race to end.   When looking at the profile, these two kms look relatively flat, but there's a slight hill just before km-9. It's not much, but enough to feel it.

The final km!  The last km is very twisty turvey - with several turns before the final stretch to the finish. I've done the race enough times now to know to be patient with the turns and not get too excited until the final stretch.  Ugh -- it felt hard!  Push, push, push, keep the legs going, focus on turnover. -- The final turn -- the finish line is now about 400 meters away. 

Slowly the finish line comes into sight.  I see the clock -- is that 40? -- No, it's already at 41... 41:30 - quick - push, in order to stay under 42 minutes -- with 100 meters to go, I put on the speed, as the clock ticks away. I make it in 41:53.  Ahh -- my body hurt, my stomach was weak, and I crossed the line panting... Thank god that's over. My splits were 4:01; 4:05; 4:07; 4:09; 4:21; 4:21; 4:17; 4:05; 4:16; 4:11.   While, I didn't have the best race of my life - many other Harriers had fantastic races - including Shane, who ran an amazing 33:00 - getting one second away from his goal of breaking 33:00.  Andrew Pape-Salmon also had an amazing race - his track training has paid off. 

So - it ended up being a PB - but not as good as I had wanted.  I took off 5 seconds, but in the scheme of things, it was a pretty flat race compared to my Cobble Hill 10km.  Looking back at my training over the past month-1.5 months, I can see where I think things fell apart.  While I kept up my mileage, for the most part, my speed work really dropped off.  Since September, I had made two major changes to my training: more distance/days of running and more speed work, and especially track workouts.  But due to various factors (not enough sleep, illness, and even racing), I had missed out on too many of my track workouts.  My perception is that this was the key factor -- the key missing link that kept me from reaching my goal. 

Anyway -- nothing like a hard race to get me motivated to get back to training hard and making sure to get in those key workouts.

I'm doing the Sun Run next weekend, we'll have to see if that race turns out any differently...