I'm incredibly happy to report that I met my goals for this race!
Some of the smaller goals were:
- Making it to the start line – check!
- Making it to the finish line – check!
- Staying positive throughout – check!
- Getting a decent race photo – yet to be confirmed ;)
But my biggest goal for this race was to finish under 2hrs and I’m so happy to put a big CHECK! beside that one. My official clocking was 1:54:23!
I think if I looked back at my emails sent to Kelly [my coach for those who are reading this and asking, “whose Kelly?”] last year after the half, that I had said to him my new goal was to go sub 2hr, even if it was 1:59:59. So to come in more than 5 minutes below that 2hr mark, and more than 12 minutes faster than my previous PB, it felt pretty good.
Of course, it’s not all about the time is it?
I don’t think you could ask for a better morning, it was sunny and warm, but not overly so. I got up about 5am to have breakfast and a small cup of coffee and to just relax a bit before having to get in the car and drive. We met at my parent’s about 6:15 and headed into town. It was nice to have enough time to get to the starting area and wait in the porta-potty line without feeling rushed (last year was a much different story). I waited as long as possible to take off my warm clothes and finally around 7:20 I did so and headed into the masses on Menzies. I had a nice chat with a girl beside me about triathlon and before I knew it, we were off.
Around the legislature and onto Wharf felt a bit slow, just navigating through the crowds, but soon enough I found a spot and settled into a nice pace. I went out a bit quicker than I expected, although not so quick that I felt like I should slow down. I had a couple moments where I thought to myself "can I really sustain this pace the whole race?" but every time I thought that I just told myself to sustain it as long as possible and if I got to the point where I couldn't, I would deal with it at the time.
I had written down my pace times for the 5, 10 & 15k markers on my hand, but hardly looked at my watch after the first few km's when I realized I was a bit ahead of my goal pace and so I just ran. I had read an interesting article from the Vancouver Sun the day before the race about the power of positive thinking and the use of repetitive thought and so decided to give it a try. My mantra throughout the race (which I repeated to myself who knows how many times) was, "short quick, short quick..." on every uphill and "enjoy the down" on every downhill. Luckily I was repeating this is my head or everyone around me would have probably thought I was crazy.
I had a few moments of self-doubt and negative thoughts around the 15k marker when I experienced a bit of pain, but managed to pull myself out of it fairly quickly and carry on. I think I did slow down a bit in the final 3-4k as my legs got a bit heavy on the last little uphill right by Ogden Point, but I knew I was going to make it under 2hrs unless something went terribly wrong, so that pulled me through all those final turns and into the finish line.
After making my way through the food tent I was congratulated by Shane, my friend Laura who was visiting from Vancouver, Tyler and my parent’s. We chatted a bit before Mom, Dad and Tyler headed to the car to drive out to Oak Bay Marina and locate Kirsten on the marathon course. Shane, Laura and I met up with another friend, Robyn, and the four of us spent the next couple hours cheering on all the racers from the day (Laura and Robyn, thanks for coming out, it was so great to see you guys). Kirsten came in around 4:20 on the marathon. I know she would have liked to have been faster, but I think she did an absolutely amazing job (especially since she was battling some major hip and foot pains).
All in all, it was a great day.
A big thank you to all the volunteers and to everyone who came out to cheer!
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