Thursday, July 24, 2014

BMO 8K, 2014


I decided to head over to Vancouver on May 3rd to do the BMO 8K around Stanley Park. I had never done any of the BMO races (8K/Half/Full), and this year I had 3 friends running the half and 2 doing the full so it seemed like a good race to do. I will also admit that when I saw last year's winning time in the 8K was ~28:30 I had extra incentive to do it seeing that I had just run 28:32 the week before (as part of the TC10K). The 8K is a large race (with almost 2000 registrants), but doesn't seem to get the elite runners. Probably because there is no prize money or complimentary entries! The timing of the 3 races worked out well for me to be able to get up early and cheer on the half marathoners, do my race, and then cheer the full marathon runners. Unfortunately it was a rather rainy day which wasn't nearly as fun for spectators or runners.

I got up at 7:30am and headed out into the rain to cheer on my 3 friends doing the half marathon. They were all in good spirits at the 10K mark where I was cheering despite being drenched (and one suffering from nasty blisters). I paced two of them for a few kilometres before turning around and going back to my room to change into a dry set of clothes and shoes! I jogged 3K up the seawall to the start of my race.


At the start line there was a huge turn out and I saw a friendly face - Marilyn - who I had run the first few K's of the TC10K with the week before. I knew she would be the heavy favourite to win the women's race, and mentioned wanting to run sub 28 minutes (which was also a goal of mine!). As we started one guy (Drew) took off and opened up a big lead, then there was a group of about 5 runners behind him, and then me and Marilyn closely following them. Around 1.5K Marilyn overtook me on an uphill, which gave me a bit of motivation to pick up the pace. The first 2K had been run in 3:32, 3:37, but I sped up noticeably and ran the next one in 3:25.

Around this point in the race (3K) I noticed that Drew had faded and the group of 5 had caught him, and I was suddenly on the back of the lead group. Another guy - Tyler - who I had picked out from the start as looking strong took the lead and I quickly tucked in behind him. I was feeling really pumped up at this point and thought "what the hell - let's go for it!". I picked the pace up some more and pulled along side Tyler and said something like "Let's go!". I slowly opened up a small lead on Tyler and the lead cyclists (and motorcycle) stayed just in front of me honking their horns at all the half marathons who were walking at this point to make way for us. It was quite the royal treatment!

I got to halfway still in the lead at 13:55, having run my fastest K in 3:21. I thought perhaps sub 28 was a possibility! But the final kilometre of the race is a gruelling uphill finish along West Georgia so it wasn't going to be easy. I knew Tyler was still close behind me as I could hear the half marathon walkers cheering for him very soon after I was past them. By around 5K I was definitely starting to hurt, those fast K's had taken a toll on me, and I could feel my legs and lungs burning in very unpleasant way. Just hang on was all I thought. The course winds around quite a lot, and I faded a bit through 5K and I had just run my slowest K in 3:42 (17:37 for 5K). Luckily I got a second wind and picked up the pace back to 3:31, 3:32 until the bottom of the hill at 7K. I was so drained at this point that I shoulder checked a few times to see how close Tyler was - and he wasn't far behind. But the nice cyclist who was leading me said "Don't worry, you got this".


Up the hill towards the finish I was hurting a lot, but now also knowing that it would take an amazing effort by someone to catch me, and even if he did I knew I had enough for a sprint. When it finally levelled out at the top I put in a decent sprint and broke the tape in an official time of 28:43, winning the race by 11 seconds over Tyler who had just held off Matt by one second who neither of us knew was there. It turns out that the race was purposefully long at 8.15K, and so my official 8K time was 28:20, a new PB (excluding my ~28:10 from the Sun Run last year), and also the largest race I've ever won (~1450 finishers).

After chatting with other runners for a few minutes, I tried to get out of the finish line area but it was a zoo. So many people, and very poorly organized so it took at least 5 minutes just to find the way out - which of course was the farthest point away from where I was headed - back down to Beach Ave to cheer on my marathon friends. Luckily I was able to jog the 2K over the hump back to Beach Ave and made it just in time to see them go by. All in all a great day!

TCK10K, 2014

Next up was the TC10K on April 27th which I was running for the 12th straight year. The first 4 were all around 42:30-43:00 minutes, the next 4 were all between 37:40-38:33, and the 3 most recent were 36:09, 36:07, and 36:15. So by that logic a 36:0x was probably in the cards? I tried to keep up my fitness by doing hard workouts during my lunch breaks, and felt reasonably good going into the race (unlike last year where I was burnt out from running 10 races in 13 weeks!). Some of my crazy friends were attempting a double race - first the TC10K then ~20 minutes after finishing the new Half Marathon. No thanks :)

Race day was forecasted to be a bit windy which isn't ideal along Dallas Road in the second half of the race where there is an uphill section. So I told myself that the first 5K was going to be "easy", and once you turn onto Dallas at 5K it was time to really focus and push up the hill (into the wind). I really wanted to try and maintain a good pace and not slow down like I usually do up the hill. I cruised through the first 5K in 3:33, 34, 34, 25, 34 (17:49). Along Moss Street my wife and son had just made it on time to see my fly by!

The wind was definitely moderate but I ignored it and pushed up the hill. The next 2K were very solid in 3:38 and 3:37. Back down the hill to 8K in 3:26 (~28:32) I caught and passed a group of about 5 runners. I started fading a bit from 8 to 9K in 3:38 and a few runners from that group passed me, but I picked it back up on the final K (3:19) and passed all of them but one (Lemlem), finishing is a new TC10K PB time of 35:28 - only 11 seconds slower than my Sun Run time of last year! I was very happy with that result, especially considering it was a 10 second negative split and very consistent pacing - definitely the most consistent I've ever run at the TC. As for placing, I was 29th overall (8th in my AG), my highest placing yet.

The following week I ran the BMO 8K in Vancouver.

Pioneer 8K & Bazan Bay 5K, 2014

I've fallen way behind in my race updates, so here's a condensed version of the first half quarter of 2014.

After a very successful 2013 I didn't have quite the same goals for 2014, especially with the birth of my first child due in February. I trained reasonably hard over the winter and through January/February hoping to maintain a decent level of fitness after the baby was born that would see me through Bazan and TC.

The year started out okay in early January at the Pioneer 8K where I ran 28:50 (12 seconds slower than 2013). After negative splitting almost every race in 2013 I made a mistake at Pioneer and went out a bit too hard. The first half was 14:15, and I faded a little bit in the second half (14:35) despite having a good battle back and forth with Damian as we tried (and failed) to reel in Brad Crowe. The final 100m sprint is uphill, and was okay as I placed 4th in 13.6 seconds (Byron won as usual in 12.97s, still not quite as fast as my 12.7s from 2012!).

The next race in the series (for me) was Bazan Bay 5K in early March which happened 2 weeks after my son was born. So the combination of lack of sleep and running in those 2 weeks meant that my expectations were not very high heading into the race. But I did manage one good training run of 6x1K on the track where the final one K repeat was run in 2:57! Which is the fastest I've ever run in training. It did help to have some fast friends out there to drag me along.

After last year's frustration at Bazan where I ran 17:01 I still secretly hoped to break the 17 minute barrier (3:24 pace). The race started out perfectly with a 3:24 opening K, but the slight uphill on the second I slowed to 3:30, and hit the halfway turnaround at 8:41. Damian had been with me through 2K, but fell off the pace and I started picking off people ahead of me. 3rd and 4th K's were 3:23 and 3:26 which meant I still had work to do on the final K to get under 17. Last year I finished in 3:12/km so it was possible... I gave it everything (and didn't make the mistake like last year of looking at my watch and relaxing!) and was very surprised with 150m to go to pass Byron the sprinter. My dream of one day have a real sprint-off with him would have to wait as I was maxed out and he was coasting :) About 50 meters into the final 100m he blew by me on his way to winning his 12th(?) green jersey. I crossed the line in 17:00. Bah. Very happy with my race (22 second negative split), but so annoyed to not get under 17. I think my sprint time of 15+ seconds was the slowest one I've done, which means probably my best race effort! A week later I decided to email the race director to find out what my fractional seconds were just in case it was 16:59.5 and got rounded up to 17. Here's the screenshot he sent me, 16:59.99! How close is that?!?