Bluenose Half Marathon 2015

Remember back this winter when I actually thought I was going to show up to a spring race fully trained for it? I amuse myself sometimes. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. First we had the winter that just would end, and I’m a terrible treadmill runner so my training didn’t really start until we were 7 weeks out. And then I realized I was taxing my body too much trying to get two runs in/week on top of my teaching schedule so I cut back to just my long runs.

And then two weeks ago I started having issues with my lung so I had to skip my last two long runs entirely. In fact, a week before the race, I was seriously in doubt that I would be well enough to run at all.

After a week of early bedtimes and lots of rest, changing the way I teach a few classes (no more weights for Suzi when teaching strength classes), and being really careful about what I eat I decided I was okay to give it a go. On Saturday I headed into the city with my friend Catherine who was running the 5k (the Bluenose 5K takes place on Saturday, all other distances are on Sunday), with the plan that J would drive in later after he got off work.

We got into the city and picked up our race kits, then browsed the expo for a bit. I picked up a FlipBelt to carry my phone, gummies, kleenex etc in. I wanted to easily be able to take photos before/after the race and when I use my arm band I have to take my phone out of it’s case and that makes me nervous. Also they were calling for rain, and the top of my arm band is open so I didn’t want my phone to get wet. Plus I like to carry lots of stuff, haha. Anyway, the FlipBelt was amazing. I was able to put everything I needed in it, and that sucker didn’t move an inch the entire race. It was comfortable and well worth the investment. I’m so glad I decided to pick one up!

I also got to see (in real life no less!) and chat with Krysten who gave me a last minute pep talk and told me I’d be fine on race day. A talk I think I needed because after the last two weeks I was really not sure what I was doing there.

Afterwards, Cat and I grabbed some lunch then headed back for her 5K. Let me tell you, she and everyone else who ran Saturday afternoon are rockstars. It was HAWT out! It was a beautiful day, but not such a beautiful afternoon for running a race. Talk about heat – especially since us Maritimers aren’t yet accustomed to the heat again, ha!

It might have been hot but Cat still managed to pull out a PR! And while she was running, I walked the perimeter of Citadel Hill and got a sunburn (even though I had put sunscreen on twice. #palepeopleproblems).

After the race we went shopping, Cat left me there and headed back to the valley and I waited for J to arrive. Once we met up we were off to find some food and spend the evening chilling out.

Saturday might have been gorgeous, but they were calling for rain and fairly cool temperatures for Sunday. I had packed a few outfits but decided on my Brooks capris and Long Sleeve Halfzip III, and was glad I did.

Race day I woke up feeling pretty refreshed, got ready and walked over to the start line where I met up with Krysten.

I knew she was hoping for a 2:15 or less finish, and I knew that wouldn’t be happening for me based on the difficulties I’d been having.

Even still I was glad to have the chance to start with her, and then let myself slow down a bit to find a more realistic pace for myself. I was trying really hard not to go out too fast, but km 1 was still the fastest of the race by about 20 seconds. I kept a pretty consistent pace for the first 10km, passing the 10k mark at about 1:09. I remember thinking as I passed that marker, “Here is where the race really begins for me…”

Halifax is a bit of a hilly beast. I’ve run the course before so this wasn’t news to me. And I knew the first half of the race would be my strongest. Even though I had purposely held back on my speed to conserve energy, my speed almost immediately took at hit. Kilometres 10-14 were 15-20 seconds slower/km than the previous 10.

This picture marks the only time I stopped moving during the race. So many people were concerned about my welfare racing, I stopped to Instagram this photo to let everyone know I was still upright and moving!

This was also the point I remembered that last thing I had meant to do – charge my Polar M400. The “low battery” warning started showing and telling me to charge it soon. I was pretty sure I’d have enough juice to finish before it died, but silently cursed myself for forgetting to charge it before I left home.

After kilometre 14 things went in the toilet. I say that in the best way possible because there was never a moment I was in pain, wanted to stop, or was concerned I wouldn’t be able to finish. But my legs were tired and Point Pleasant Park is not pleasant. Some of the hills I didn’t even waste my energy trying to run up, in fact I passed a number of people who were trying to run up the hills by walking. Here my pace slowed down another 15-20 seconds/km as I started walking more to get through the hills.

When I saw the exit of the woods, I was so happy to be out of there! Haha. But by then I was really pretty tired out and didn’t have too much more in me. I don’t remember where exactly, butI feel it was somewhere in the kilometre 17 or 18 range when I saw Anna which was a definite moral booster. After being in the woods for so long it was nice to see a familiar face!

Once I was on South Park Street I knew that any hopes of finishing in 2:30 (which was my hope at the start of the race) was gone, but if I picked up my pace a bit I could still finish in under 2:40 – and all considered that sounded pretty good to me. I finished with a chip time of 2:38:12 feeling good, uninjured, and pain free. I was definitely at the back of the pack for this race with only 100 of the nearly 1500 participants finishing after me but whatevs, a healthy finish is always a win!

As far as the technical side of my race goes, I wasn’t running based on my pace, I was running based on my heart rate. I was trying to stay out of Zone 5 as I knew I wasn’t at my healthiest and under-recovered.

So anytime I saw myself hit zone 5 I stopped running and walked until I was back to the mid/low Zone 4. I purposely didn’t push myself because I knew health-wise it wasn’t a wise choice.

Besides, I’ve now set my 2015 race bar quite low, and I have lots of room to improve from here 😉 Gotta look at the bright side!