As we hit the mid-point of August, the evening runners are finding their daily runs starting to encroach into dusk's fading light, and morning runners in the northern reaches are setting out into skies just lightening.  Cloe to time to dig into the running closet for the reflective gear tossed aside when daylight savings kicked in.

Well....there's no doubt about it - fall racing season is knocking at our door!  But there's still some exciting summer racing left and after a few quiet weeks on our race calendar things are starting to ramp up.

Two HM, a 15K and two 10Ks on the calendar this week.

Redleaf is aiming for a PR at the 15K (15K...are these a Canadian thing?). When she put the race on the calendar, goal was looking to beat last year's time...but now she's circled back to "I'm changing my goal time to 1:52:30", which looks to me it will be a 1:30 PR when she nails it...running off into the moon light over Toronto Saturday evening.

Juniordo1 is shooting for a personal first sub-2 half.

Ayola will be heading down from her neighborhood in the hills of Halifax to a Canadian Navy Base complex for flat course next to the harbor.

I'll be heading out for my 3rd try at what sounds like a nice run along the coast ("...Shore Run"), but turns out to the be a constant sequence of hills and sharp descents on beautiful country dirt roads...coming within 30 sec/mi of my 10K PR will be a big wo-hoo!

I think 10K is a fantastic race distance, second only to the half. Long enough that you have to find a 'cruise' pace that you can sustain; short enough that mental stamina isn't tested. A great distance to test your Half Marathon conditioning as you push the pace up past tempo workout loads, but not near the anaerobic 5K redline.

Good luck, fleet feet and following winds to all the racers and trainers logging miles.

Damn you cut 'n paste while on a boring conference call, darn it.  

Sorry!  Thank you for point it out.

I think you forgot to include the 17th

 

WTG Redleaf!  Knocked it out of the park and crushed your goal.  Good stuff!

I posted a time 12 sec slower than last year in my 10K....just about 4 min over my 10K PR. But ran 11OA in the race. (small race, less than 60 runners)

Per plan, gave up some effort in the 1 - 2mi section to try and run stronger in the sharp hills of 2 -3-4. Settled in just behind the 1OA Female somewhere between 2 & 3...I was out climbing her, but she was out running me down the back of the hill. Let her go on the long, sharp downhill heading to 4, then slowly reeled her in on the flatter section heading into 5. We exchanged a few words and I figured out she didn't know the course, so used the heavy double climb from 5 to 5.5 to push right to redline and try to gap her. Worked for a while, then on the last sharp downhill I could hear her coming. We crossed 5.5 even, and both walked a chunk of the last hill. Then she pulled away on the last section to beat me by 5 secs. I know I pushed her to the limit, she went to her knees in the finish chute. It's satisfying as a 52 year-old to make a 27 year-old person work that hard.

Next year...next year...

MT, sounds like a heck of a race!  I've never been that close to somebody who has come back like that- exciting.

Redlead- Congrats!