Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen; madams and monsieurs. Welcome to the May 3^rd/4^th edition of races of the week.

Starting into this week’s thought...I noticed that our racers of record this week are all gentlemen. This reminded me of a recent update on road racing in the USA that noted over 60% of racer participants are women. It is women who have driven the growth of running and road races – their growing participation in the past decade(s) has been a key driver of the bounty of races now available to us, and especially the half marathon’s growth.

Good to see a couple 10K runners this week..the 10K is a good predictor of half marathon times – usually better than even 10mi when plugged into the race time predictors for some reason.

Cyberic99 is looking to reset his 10K PR and run his age, 44 minutes, in the Spring Challenge race. Race course is through the botanical gardens in the former Montreal Olympic park area (’76 summer for the youngsters…think Nadia Comaneci scoring 10). Should be a wonderful shot of green and spring after a long Canadian winter, not that Cyberic99 will do any sightseeing moving at that clip.

Nra4life’s 10K looks to be strong entry for the annual race-name-of-the-year award!

I thought Hog4life would be setting over hill and dale a steeplechase, but not the case…his 8K is chasing steeples on churches. 8K? One certainly has to wonder why they don’t move the start cone back about 30 yards and have a real 5-miler.

Not sure what SimonR’s running is up to these days, haven’t seen him here for a bit. If you’re out there lurking Simon, hope things are well with you and good to see you back to racing.

Wishing all our racers fleet feet, following breezes and short port-a-john lines this week!

Good luck!

Have Great races everyone!

Hi everyone I will be running the "Run To The Top" on Saturday 5/3 in Provincetown, MA.  The Pilgrim Monument, Provincetown is the tallest all granite strutchure in the US, standing 252 feet 7.5 inches tall.  It consist of 116 stairs and 60 ramps.  I have run this for the past 2 years, setting a PR each year.  Hoping to keep the steak going and completing the course in under 2:35 minutes.

it is a different style race, full throttle and just hope you don't slip as you continue the climb.

Have a great climb Rondog!

Congrats Cyber!!

I finished the 8k with Bella for a 1:30 ish PR, I time was 38:08, good for third in AG.

My race report. Hope I didn't make too many mistakes (I'm a French speaking Canadian).

My state of mind coming into the race

I was a little nervous in the couple of weeks leading to the race. I had doubts about the way I trained for the race, and I didn’t know what kind of pace I could hold for 10k.

I ran a 44:20 10k in training last fall. So although my objective was to run under 44:00 at 44 years old in this race, in the back of my mind I had a more ambitious goal of 43:00. Last fall, in my half-marathon, I chose not to play it safe, to go all out with an optimistic pace, and I’m glad I did. I had no idea if I could hold that pace either at that time. So I decided to give it a shot and go all out again. I expected some suffering, but I was going for 43:00.

Race choice

It is a small race, a little less than 300 participants for the 10k, at a location about 5-6 kilometers away from my house. It consists of two 5k loops. About half of it being in the Montreal botanical garden, and the other half in parc Maisonneuve, which is a very nice park that used to be a golf course until the mid-1970s. The view is not at its best this time of year, no flowers yet, no leaves in the trees, but I was not going there for the view anyways. I work next door to the park, and run there and in the botanical garden all the time. Entry fee was 20$. Profits go to the local YMCA. The idea was to get a brand new 10k race time since my PR at 10k was a 48:24 ran in October 2012 when I had been running for about three months.

There is a rather large cabin in the park with washrooms and all. Got my race equipment on race morning in the cabin and could keep warm in there waiting for the time to come.

Race

I felt great on the starting line. 10-11 degrees Celcius (50-52F). Decided to go for the shorts and t-shirt. The whole body felt great, no pain whatsoever in the legs or groin. Didn’t want to get stuck in traffic so I went out a little fast in the first 100m. But I think I did a good move because I ended up with people running at around my pace right off the bat.

First 4 km I ran a little too fast. I had set my watch on « Pacer mode » and it told me if I was ahead or behind my goal of 43:00. By the 4th km it predicted I would finish 53 seconds ahead of time if I kept that pace. But I was tiring already.

Then I hit the 5 km mark and that lifted my spirits a bit. I thought that maybe I could make my 43:00 since I was ahead. All I needed to do was not to slow down too much. But I was beat. The watch was telling me I was losing my buffer much too fast. I needed to hold the pace and stop slowing down. I did that for a time. By the 8 km marker my watch told me I was going to finish right on my goal time.

9th kilometer was painful. I couldn’t keep up with the guy I had been following since before the halfway mark of the race. I had hoped I would pass him in the last meters of the race but that seemed hopeless now as I was losing ground.

9th kilometer marker. Finally. I think the guy ahead of me had slowed down also. He was about 10 meters in front of me. But we were slow. Too slow. My watch was saying I was going to finish a few seconds behind goal. And it was getting worse each km. But it was ok. Low 43s was a very good time. I was going to be happy. At least I would have tried. So ok, last km, time to try and run a little faster. Then - zoom - a guy passed us both. That probably pulled us through the last km as the guy ahead of me (talked to him after the race) sped up to keep behind that new guy, and I was trailing but keeping close. Then came the last few hundred meters. Time to make my move. The guy ahead was peeping over his shoulder to see where I was but I just couldn’t accelerate. I was maxed out and the best I could do is keep that pace. Looked at my watch, I was going to finish right on goal time.

As I got near the finish line I saw the time display was reading 42 minutes twenty something seconds. I then ran past the line in 42:24 happy and surprised. What had happened? Simple enough. The race was in a park and had a few twists and turns. My watch takes a reading of its position every 2 seconds. So it often loses a few meters on those turns taking the shortest route between the two readings. Since I was right on time for a 43:00 finish on my watch in which I still had 150m to run, I’m happily surprised with a 42:24.3 finish time!

Splits

I adjusted the readings on my watch a little to try to represent the reality of the race being 10 km and not 9.85 km like the watch calculated. I think if I add these figures it will add up to more than 42:24, but the real readings on the watch would give a last split of 3:36 (0.85 km). So I think these numbers are probably close to reality.

4:15 – km 1

4:05 – km 2

4:11 – km 3

4:09 – km 4

4:15 – km 5

4:23 – km 6

4:19 – km 7

4:15 – km 8

4:27 – km 9

4:12 – km 10

After the race

The guy in front of me and I and the guy who passed us both congratulated each other after the race. I ate my post race snack with the guy who passed us. Turns out he finished 12th and I finished 14th out of 283 runners. We were both happy with our race. We both agreed that the mental part was huge in both our finishing times. It was just as hard mentally to keep the pace as it was physically. Maybe harder.

MTA: Shoot. I just realized this is not where I was supposed to posr the race report.

Great report Cyber!