Calgary Half-Marathon Race Report - 2009

I slept pretty awful the night before the race...maybe 4hrs in total - max. I was so nervous I was ready throw-up at any moments notice. The nervousness was coming from my own perception of feeling inadequately prepared for this race. I missed about a month's worth of training with the move so that was feeding directly into my mood heading into this race. I thought was in a great headspace but as race day got closer things changed to what they were.

Regardless of my insecurities, I was comitted to doing this race and was looking forward to getting the first race out of the way. I find the first race of the season tends to clear out the cob-webs and prepares you mentally/physicall for the rest of the season.

I woke up at 5am and decided to not shower before the race...something I normally did in the past. For breakfast I ate about half a slice of peanut butter toast and tried to cram in a banana before taking off.

I decided to park the car at one of the LRT stations and catch the train down to near the race site. I was not too familiar with the area so was hoping there would be someone to follow when I got off the train. That wasn't a problem when I got to the destination station as there were boat loads of runners heading over to the race venue.

Got there with an hour to spare so I meandered around to find a nice quiet spot to do some light stretching and listen to some tuneage. Before the race I hit the porta-potty three times and just before the start of the race I had to ditch into a bush as well. Apparently I wasn't the only one and there were a stream of guys heading into the bushes near the start...LOL. One fellow says to me "It pays to be a guy during moments like this".

With 10 minutes to go I decided to jump into the crowd lined up at the start. I situated myself somewhere in the middle of the pack and just stood there looking both in front and behind me. It is incredible to see that many people crammed into a tight space.

When the gun went off it took about 35 - 40 seconds to reach the start line. The first couple of km's were brutally slow trying to get around people and find some space to run my own pace. Eventually things started to spread out and I was able to settle into my groove. I pulled my cap down and just tried to focus on my breathing - take deep breaths from the bottom of my tummy, keeping my shoulders relaxed, arms close to my side, and my cadence high. Couple of times I noticed myself getting caught up in the moment and running a little faster than I should have been and would dial it back.

The first 14km went really comfortable - in the back of my mind I kept wondering when things were going to blow up as I have never run this pace before. Around this point I was starting to catch a few people I noticed passed me earlier on in the race. This really got me pumped, along with feeling so good I decided to open the throttle a little bit more to see what I could.

Things were great until the 17km when things started to become uncomfortable. We caught up with the 10km walkers so there was a lot of dodging and even a few bumps along the way. They were suppose to stay in the right lane and the left lane was the half marathoners but they spread out across the board.

I slowed down to my goal pace until this one guy caught up to me. He was running 4:00 - 4:05km pace and I decided go with him until I blew up. We were humming along, clicking off the last few km's. I was starting to hurt bad at this point and really trying to shut off my brain to escape.

Last 750m was an all out sprint with me and this guy and some dude just behind us. We crossed the finish line together and I was in a world of hurt. I quickly grabbed my medal and bee-lined to the fence. Even before I could get there I was throwing up along the way. What a mess...I'm sure the people along the fence were disgusted. This went on for about 5 minutes and it took about 25 minutes before I could drink/eat anything.

So how did I do?

I made my pace goal this morning and in the process set a new PB - 1:31:35

Stopping at 5 of 6 of the aid stations costed me a little time but time well spent in my opinion.

Anyways, it was a great start to the season and I am thinking about running another half marathon in the fall to see if I can crack the 1:30:00 barrier.