A New Personal Best!

Well, the day did not start off as I had hoped. I weighed in at 170.0 lbs. Essentially, no change since my last weigh-in 10 days ago. Grrrr!

Anyway, I brushed that off and headed out to my race: the Angus Glen Half Marathon (21.1K or 13.1 miles).

I didn't really go into this race trying for a personal best (PB). I had been doing my long runs, some speed work, but not much else than that. I just wanted to have a good run and see how it goes. I drove up in convoy with CL, KL and KH. We parked in the big muddy field and then made our way to the clubhouse at the golf course where the race was starting.

It was PACKED by the time we got there and bathroom lineups (which I had to stand in twice) were pretty long. The horn from the fire truck went off just after 10AM and we began our run. It was a bit slow going on the run out of the club because of the narrow path and the number of runners, but CL and I were able to pick up the pace on the slight downhill after that. We hit the 1K mark in just over 6 minutes and CL was worried that we had gone out too fast. I said that we were fine and that our pace would slow down once we started the walk breaks (heh, heh, heh).

Running through the neighbourhood was quite nice. It was great that some families came out to cheer us on. And there were NO issues with traffic or road closures, that I could see. I didn't take my split times, but we hit the 5K mark in just over 30 minutes. Yes, a little faster than planned, but there was still a lot of race to go.

The "hill" leading up to the 6K marker that we had heard about beforehand wasn't really an issue. As we were climbing we saw the 2:15 pace bunny ahead of us. I was determined to get past her and picked up the pace a bit since there was a big crowd around her and I don't like running in a pack like that. Just then, someone decided to start singing and that was the LAST thing I wanted to hear, so to CL's dismay (yet again), I picked up the pace to get away from the singer.

The rolling hills started around the 6K point and lasted all the way until the 18K mark (with one flat but windy section from about 14-16K). Hills are not my strength (unless they're of the "down" persuasion), which is part of the reason why I hadn't set my heart on a PB as this was not a flat and fast course. We hit the 10K at 1:01 and the half-way point at 1:04-something, so we knew that we were both on pace for a PB if we could maintain that pace. The rolling section from 11K-15K was a non-issue. But when we made the turn south just before the 15K mark... WHAM! There was the wind! At CL's suggestion, we took turns leading and drafting to save energy. Another woman tried to tuck in behind us, but I think we eventually ended up dropping her.

The best part was hitting the 16K marker in 1:38 and knowing that if we could run the final 5K in 30:00, we'd both have PBs. However, this is also where my hamstrings started to sing (and their singing was WAY off key!). I asked myself, "How bad do you want this?" and decided to keep pushing the pace to the best of my ability. Our friend E was waiting for us at the next corner, just as we turned out of the wind. It was great to have company on the last bit of the run. In fact, when we made the final turn into the massive headwind at about the 18.5K mark, she took the lead and we drafted behind her. CL decided to take her final walk break and I wanted to forge ahead, so E ran with me until we hit the crest of the final hill and then she went back to run with CL.

I love running downhill, but it was totally spoiled today by that nasty headwind. It was a nice treat to see some friends from my on-line running club on the final approach to the entrance to the golf club. I knew at that point that I was going to have a PB on the day and pointed to my watch as I passed them. That was the last time I had looked at my watch, so instead I keyed off the couple running ahead of me. I passed them in the last few hundred meters. I saw KH and KL near the finish line. I was totally stoked to see the time on the clock was 2:09-something, which meant an official PB for me on the day. My official finishing time was 2:09:14, which is 47 seconds faster than my previous PB that I set in Ottawa this past May.

Almost as soon as I got my medal, I could feel my hamstrings cramping up. I'll have to take it easy this week, that's for sure.

The post-race food was good, but the space seemed a bit small for the number of people. They cut off registration at 1,000 runners, which was a good call as it would have been insane with any more than that.

For the rest of the day I simply vegged on the couch and tried not to think about my sore hamstrings. I'll be feeling them tomorrow, that's for sure! Maybe I should book myself a massage...

Speaking of food, I didn't even bother to track my calories consumed today. I'd have no clue on how to tabulate the calories from my post-race meal. Today's run burned close to 1,800 additional calories, so I'm not too worried about going over.