This is the 2nd time I’ve run this race. The first time was 10 years ago and all I remember was that it was really cold while we were waiting in the corral. It’s a net downhill course and I’ve never been more prepared so I was definitely hoping for a PB. Here’s how it all went down…

The fundraising: I normally don’t like asking people for money but I figured it was for a good cause (Camp Ooch) and Steve did a great job at motivating the team to fundraise. In the end, I raised over $500 and the entire Telus team raised over $60,000! So incredible to have been a part of this team.

The gear: It was cold this morning but not as cold as what the forecast was predicting yesterday so I briefly contemplated on just wearing a t-shirt and long pants. I’m glad I stuck to my plan of long pants, t-shirt and a long sleeve shirt because there was a lot of standing around before the race began and it was COLD. I took the long sleeve off right before the race started and tied it around my waist which worked well, except that my pants felt like they were falling down and my t-shirt kept on riding up. I ended up tucking in my shirt to prevent my belly from making an unwanted appearance in the race photos. I also wore my hat and sunglasses which I didn’t really need because it wasn’t sunny until after we finished.

The corral: When I signed up for this race, I had signed up for the 1:00-1:04 corral. But after our Chilly Half, Lisa convinced me that we should change to the sub-1 hour corral instead. That made sense since we ran the half (21.1km) in 2:01. Then, at some point, Lisa suggested that we should change again to the 0:53-0:55 corral. Because she tells me she is bad at math, I didn’t think she realized that would require us to run at a sub 5:30 pace. 😅 I wasn’t confident that we would be able to do it but I figured it doesn’t hurt to be in a faster corral since we can always run slower and be “one of those people” who become obstacles for the faster runners. 🤣

The start line: I met Parm at 6:10am to catch the Sheppard bus to Yonge Street. I had never taken the bus so early before but at least there was no traffic. Then Lisa joined us to catch the bus south to Lawrence. We walked from there and took a quick potty break before settling in to our corral by about 7:10am. According to the website, the first 3 corrals were supposed to be there by 7:15am but a lot of people were still trickling in after that time. It was so cold that we were huddling together like penguins.

We ended up being in the same corral as Kathleen Wynne so I took a picture with her just for fun.

KM 1-2: When we were finally allowed to start, we went out really fast. According to my Strava, we did our first km in 4:47 min/km. I knew right away that we had gone out too fast but it was because I was trying to weave around the “obstacles” (aka the slower runners). At one point, we were weaving through a thick crowd of people in a construction area with lots of traffic cones. Lisa said she nearly lost me there but thankfully she was able to catch up. By the time we found a less crowded patch, I knew I needed to slow down because we weren’t going to be able to sustain a sub 5-min pace for 10k. It’s so hard to pace when there aren’t any pace bunnies. Thank goodness for Strava who tells us our pace every 0.5km.

KM 3-4: By km 3, I was feeling the burn in my shins. I think it’s a combination of running downhill, being cold, not being able to warm-up before starting the race, and starting too fast. I tried not to think about it and just pushed forward. Lisa and I had agreed to not stop for water which was fine with me since I brought my own water and I had a full bladder anyway. While we were waiting in the corral, I wanted to go to the port-a-potty again about 10 minutes before the race was scheduled to start but I didn’t want to risk not being able to get back into the corral so I just held it. I really need to figure this out for future races since the same thing happened at the Chilly half where I also ran with a full bladder. 😂

KM 5-7: At km 5, Lisa told me that Strava said we had run 24 minutes which would mean we were tracking to get a sub-50. I knew that we weren’t going to sustain that pace so I didn’t get my hopes up. I also didn’t expect that we would be able to run a negative split. Turns out, my Strava must have been off by a minute because our official 5km split was 25:20.

KM 8-10: At this point, I started using a strategy that I learned from Krista Duchene’s Boston Marathon race report. I picked out people in front of me who looked like they were still going strong and chased them. This really worked because we started passing people one after another. This made us run faster than I expected in the second half. We even managed another sub 5-min pace in the final km!

The finish: We ended up finishing in 50:43! Not only did we get a huge PB, we even crushed our 53-55 min goal! Even though we didn’t do a negative split, it felt good to have maintained a consistent pace throughout (5:03/5:04). Even Jim was impressed with our split which meant a lot to me! I have no idea how we were able to run so fast given my indoor triathlon pace was 5:10 and that was only 15 minutes of running! Compared to my last 10k in Sept, I have improved by almost 15 minutes! Yipeeeeeeee! 😄 😄 😄

Post-race: The post race area was really well organized. We were herded through the chute where we picked up water, gatorade, our medal, and food. I even managed to message the others to join us for this photo-op.

Post post-race: I was so tired when I got home, I had lunch and I took a 3-hour nap. It was the perfect way to spend Mother’s Day! 😄

Nutrition log:

• Pre-run: PB&J bagel 3 hours before
• Mid-run: nothing
• Post-run: Gatorade, a few bites of bagel, banana
• Lunch: cereal, udon, smoothie