On your marks, get set…

It’s funny, when I compare my MEC 10 km race from last week to my BMO 8 km race in May, it’s like night and day. MEC had me satisfied. BMO had me shattered. And yet, looking at the straight stats, I was faster for BMO… just an average of 4 seconds faster, mind you, but faster nonetheless.

However, I went into BMO – my first race back post pregnancy – expecting brilliance. I wanted my pace to be unwavering. I wanted my focus to be sharp. I wanted a perfect race. But when my pace started to drop, my focus waned, my heart sunk, my legs slowed. And that devil on my shoulder kept beating me down, telling me there was no way I could fix it, no way I could crank up the speed in my legs, no way I could make my goal. Honestly, I felt like I gave up.

But with MEC, I tried not to get loaded down with pressure. I tried to reign in my competitiveness. I tried to treat it more as an amped up training run than a race. And while I somewhat failed in that, I still had a better frame of mind going into MEC than I did BMO.

And here’s the thing, sure, I could have run it faster; sure, I let the race get the better of me for about 2-3 km; sure, I waited way too long to get my sprint on (where the heck was my inner Cavendish when I needed him?) – but the fact my legs were so incredibly wobbly at the finish, and the fact I could barely hold myself up, I knew I had given a good part of myself in that run. I was proud of my performance.

And it was that race that officially marked the start of my racing season 😀

A Princess-Perfect 2013 Race Schedule:

My goal race is the Bellingham Bay half marathon in September, of which I intend to complete in under 2 hours. (My previous PB was 2 hours and 24 seconds in Toronto 2 years ago… it’s time for a new one!) The 10 km races are meant to get my mind in the game, get my body, brain and blood sugars used to racing again, and also to evaluate my progress through training. There’s going to be a lot of early mornings, a lot of speed work, a lot of sweat, soreness and maybe even a few tears. But that’s the thing with goals, if achieving them were easy, everyone would be doing them – and where would the fun in that be 😀

So hey, let’s go run!!!

130701run

TODAY’S SPEED INTERVALS:

  • 5:00 a.m. BG before: 4.5
  • Carbs: granola bar (15g) with insulin
  • Temp. basal: none
  • Distance: 7.03 km
  • Run: 10′ warmup/3×3′ fast, 1′ easy/2×5′ fast, 1′ easy/10′ cool down
  • Average interval pace: 4.57 min/km
  • Time: 43 minutes
  • 6:30 a.m. BG after: 5.5

With this run, my pace should have been averaging 4:30 min/km, which obviously didn’t happen. But what did happen was me managing a consistent pace for all my intervals from start to finish, which in my speed world was a first! And with dead bugs stuck to my face following that early morning, humid run, I’ll take that as a win 😀

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

6 thoughts on “On your marks, get set…”

  1. Hey 🙂
    I REALLY enjoyed reading this blog!!
    Your determination, your self-discipline, still blow my mind.
    “Let’s Go Run!”
    Indeed 🙂

Leave a Reply