Sunday - Around the Bay - 2:51:12

What a great day that turned out to be in the end. Nadia, Bryan, Steve, Lynne and I drove down together. Steve had to go somewhere after the race so he and Lynne drove down in Steve's car. We saw John getting ready to start the walk, but we were cold and wet so we chatted for a bit, but didn't wait for the start before heading inside. We met up with Samantha and John at Copps and saw Shannon, Christine and Fred before we headed out.

The weather was crappy and wet, but the big winds they were talking about never really materialized. We saw Bernadette, Sid and Simon at the start line, and then again part way through the race as they passed us.

Samantha, my niece, who was running her third ever race (http://www.sportstats.ca/find-an-athlete-find-a-race-search.php?lang=eng&first=samantha&last=green&city=&month=&year=) a 5k, the Toronto Half and now this) said she wanted to stick with me for as long as she could. We all took off together. It took us two and a half minutes to make it to the start line. Steve and John pulled out ahead of us pretty quickly. Sam and I stuck together bobbing, weaving and dancing around people in front of us for about the first 6 or 7k.

When we got down the left turn that had us heading north to Burlington, I saw John off at the side of the road eating a gel. We yelled over and he said he was fine. It was his 45 minute Gu break. We kept pushing on through the rain that kept coming and going. John passed us again a few minutes after that.

We got to the 10k mark where all the relay folks were waiting and fought our way through the somewhat narrow path between them. I always hate passing the relay spots. For the next couple of k I'm always passed by these folks who are nice and fresh, just starting their leg of the race. By the 10k mark I'm pretty much in a groove, and fell like I'll be running with this group for a while. Having all these fresh starters blow past always sets me back a bit.

We past the 10k mark at 55:18. I was pretty happy with that. Sam and I were still side by side. Conversation had pretty much stopped by that point though! A fire truck pulled onto the road beside us just past that point. It was weird to see this thing go flying up the road and all the runners moving off to one side.

By the time we got to the 15k mark, two things happened. I was eating a gel every 30 minutes, but this was the first of the "Roctane" ones that I tried. It is stalked about as Gu x 2 as far as energy goes. Within 5 minutes I felt all energized (the Advil I too had kicked in too so my legs quit hurting) . I don't know if I was picking up speed or if Sam was slowing down, but we said our goodbyes and good lucks and I started to pull ahead a bit. I was amazed at how well she was doing so far into the race.

I caught up to John a few minutes later. He was dragging it a bit. John is usually much faster than I so I figured maybe he was having problems. I pulled ahead of John, made it up to the turn into Burlington, eat my last Advil and another gel and took off again. John called out to me in Burlington hills so I circled back for a second and talked to him for a minute. I was actually thinking this was a good excuse for me to walk for a minute, but John started to jog. I could see Steve up ahead at that point so it was 'Goodbye" to John and then the long slow stalking of Steve. I almost caught him, but I dropped one of my water bottles. I turned and picked it up and he was off ahead again.

It took me a good 10 minutes to catch him. We were just at about the 21k mark then. We stuck together until just about the 25l mark. He dropped a bottle just as we were heading into the area where the "Queen - We Will Rock You" dwarf was. I didn't wait. A quick high 5 to the dwarf, over the bridge and started to walk at the base of the mountain. I walked quickly, but I was bound and determined that I didn't want to burn up an unnecessary energy getting up the hill.

At the top, 4 minutes later, I had another gel, a sip of water and I was off. I put my head down bit, pulled my cap down to block the wind and just kept looking at the next set of feet in front of me, and ran past them. I thought of running with Val a couple of years earlier and how I knew I was running as quickly as I could, but she picked up the pace a few times and I was able to also. I refused to give in to the tired legs and aching knees. I was really wishing I'd had one more Advil though!

Past the graveyard, high 5 to the Grim Reaper, and his son I guess?? and I was finally into that last stretch. I just kept looking at the next pair of feet and doing whatever to get past them. I saw Bev just before the entrance to the arena and leaned over to the right to give her a high . . . well, a 5 anyway. As soon as I moved my body off center to the right, my right calf went into spasm. I thought I was screwed. It tightened up like crazy, but luckily loosened as son as I got back on center. Down the ramp, down the shoot, I heard my name called and blasted past the finish line. I haven't hooked up my GPS to check the data yet, but I'm sure I picked up speed all along that last 3.5 k. I had absolutely nothing left at the end. I ran straight into the barrier at the far end and hung on for a few minutes trying to get my heart rate down and my breath back. It took a while. One of the volunteers stuck with my for a while to make sure I was OK. I'm sure I'd finished at the very last possible moment that I could hold a zone 5 heart rate.

I got back to the section where we were all meeting. Bryan was there already of course. He'd done a 2:42. I'd forgotten to hit stop on my watch so I didn't know how I'd done until I got home.

Michael Pengally was sitting all rested already after finishing early. Neil came in moments later as did everyone else.

It ends up I got my time and then some. 2:51:12 I'm glad to have finally broken that elusive 3:00:00 mark. It's Monday morning now as I'm writing this. Now I'll be glad when my toes quit hurting, my headache goes away and if these quads ever loosen up again, I'll be one happy guy!