It was a foggy morning in Vancouver, and the fog followed as we made the 20 min. drive through Richmond to Steveston. I was dropped off at the community center with 30 min. before race time, and warmed up alone.
Moments before the start time, I saw my family, and handed off my jacket and toque. It was cool, but not bad, probably around 2 deg/C. I situated myself near the front; but as the start line is really narrow, only about 30 feet across, I soon found myself further back than I really wanted. I didn't seem to have the mental energy to fight for a better position and move up a few feet, so I accepted my placement, thinking it might help in maintaining a controlled start.
The gun was off and there were a group of runners that were in my way in the first 200m, but this was soon resolved, and I found myself with no human impediments. My legs were well rested and the first couple of K's felt almost awkward, wondering if I was even moving fast, and some doubts entered my mind, as it seemed there were a lot of runners ahead of me, and my legs weren't in their groove.
After a couple K, my legs were feeling better, and I still wasn't positive that I was running at the proper (race) pace. At 5K, against my coach's advice, I checked my watch: this was to be the first and only time I did this. The curiosity was too much! It read 18:10 and I was now armed with concrete confirmation that my race was on!
One of my race plan options was to feed and run off other runners, with the hope that it would help to pull me along. I find this tactic somewhat difficult during a race, but did manage to do it once at around the 6K point. The eventual 3rd place female runner (I think) came up to me and had a few feet on me. I was side by side with another runner, and my body was starting to hurt, so I sped up to the female runner. I was hoping that I'd mentally defeat the runner I was running with; and maybe I did, as I didn't see him again. I tried to latch and stay with Ms. Tinari, but with about 1.5 K to go, she was off. The last 1.5 k was not just hard physically on me, which is as it should be, but I was caught in "no man's land". The nearest runner was too far ahead to catch and I just concentrated on staying with good form and driving the last 300m.
My finish time of 29:34, is some 39 sec. better than my previous PB, on this very same course last year. Compared to last year when I ran 30:07, the actual hurting seemed less (just a bit) with better results. For this reason alone, I'm quite satisfied with today's race. I did fall off the pace in the last 3k a bit, which is something to look at.
I look forward to discussing plans with my Coach; as he once again gave me some good stuff to think about when things got hard today.
A few pics to come in a few days, when I'm back home. Official race results here.
6 comments:
Great Job Lawrence!!
Patty
Way to go Big Bro! JM
A 39 second improvement over 8K is quite nice. Well done on the race.
Congratulations on a fantastic race, you must be very happy with a performance that lands you 39" over 8-k, well done!
What's next? Do you know of any 10 to 15-k races in/around Vancouver in the next few months?
Depending on coach's advice (& family commitments), I think my next race will be down in your neck of the woods, Victoria.
I'm pretty satisfied with how things turned out, considering the lack of specific prep. for this one
Well done Lawrence..even Gatsby was impressed when I told him you were under 30 min.
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