Run for Canada 10k Race Report

Happy Canada Day to all Canadians and Canadians at heart!

I did a 10k race this morning. I had thoughts of maybe trying to set a PR this morning. Unfortunately I slept in a bit and didn't leave until 7:00am. The race was at 8:00am downtown and it would take me about 30 minutes to drive there. The staging area is at Ontario's Place. I thought I'd be smart (which turned out to be a dumb idea) and try and park about a mile away from the main parking lot in which there was bound to be a line-up. I had hoped to pit stop at a local park on the jog over to use the restroom which would allow me to arrive at the race with about 15 minutes to spare. Unfortunatley the doors on the bathroom were locked and so I had to do the porta-pottie lineup when I got there. So by the time I've finished my business there's only about 5 minutes till the race start. I wanted to get close to the start line, but it was tough to get in since they had fences around the startline and it was packed. I started walking towards the back until I saw some free space and jumped the fence and waited for the start. I was kinda expecting them to sing the national anthem with it being Canada Day and all but they didn't. Oh well.

The race starts and it takes me over a minute to cross the start line and I had much difficulty trying to get up to speed. I was weaving in and around people. The first 400m were okay since I could run on the grass and pass people but then the road goes into this chute like area with fences and there were just too many people and I had to slow down. No PR for me today. Once we past the chute, we get out onto the road with oncoming traffic, I was able to start getting up to speed again and hit the 1st km marker at 4:29 which I was surprised with since I felt like I was going much slower.

Shortly after the 1km marker, I pull up beside C who I'd met at the Scotiabank marathon last fall. I saw him at a couple of races I did last year and struck up a conversation after the marathon last year where we had both bombed at trying to go 3:10. Anyhow, I wanted to see how his running was going and slowed down to his pace. He was going much slower than he normally would. As it turns out, he had hurt his knee and was pacing a friend today. I spent about half a km chatting with him and then continued on. Hit the 2nd km marker at 4:31 which again surprised me cause I thought it would have been much slower. The surge after my brief chat sent my HR spiking. I've noticed that this seems to occur when I suddenly change pace drastically. Maybe if I had warmed up properly, this wouldn't have occurred. Anyhow, I run the entire 3rd km with HR spiking and have a 4:19 split.

Shortly after the 3km marker, the HR returns to normal. The rest of the race is pretty uneventful, pulling off of a couple of km in the 4:20's and a couple in the teens. I really tried to turn it on in the last km trying to pass as many people as I could and managed a 4:00 min km split. Finished with a final time of 43:24 with a 53s negative split. I probably could have gone faster, but with the slow first two km and then the HR spiking, I didn't want to burn myself out since I have a 5k race this weekend.

KM	Lap Time	Pace
1	04:29.2	07:13.2
2	04:31.2	07:16.5
3	04:18.9	06:56.7
4	04:22.9	07:03.1
5	04:26.5	07:08.9
6	04:22.6	07:02.6
7	04:14.9	06:50.2
8	04:22.6	07:02.6
9	04:16.5	06:52.8
10	03:58.7	06:24.2

Average pace was 6:59 but this was a bit off considering the first two slow kms. Chatted with Kenny after the race and jogged back to my car. I had paid $10 for parking thinking that this was going to be cheap considering today was a public holiday. Unfortunately, this would turn out to be too much. Ontario Place was offering parking in the morning at the site for only $5 and even the park which is about .5 miles from Ontario place and is normally full had hourly $1 parking which probably would have only been $2-$3 for the race. Feeling like I had been ripped off, I decided to spend a couple more hours at Ontario Place. The race kit had come with a pass to Ontario place which normally would cost $30, so to try and justify the parking cost, I decided to head back to Ontario Place. Thankfully, the $5 parking they were offering was only valid for the morning and they jacked up the price to $12 by the time I had gotten back. I kinda felt vindicated, but still ripped off.

Anyhow, the shirt is a bit weird since they had the bib number printed on it which means you had to wear it during the race which is a bit of a taboo. I really like the design of the shirt. It's supposed to be modeled after what the Canadian athletes will be wearing in Beijing at the Olympics. The shirts were a bit on the large side. I normally would wear a medium, but got the small which fit pretty good.

Also the medal was really cool. Made by the Canadian Mint (they make our coin currency), the medal was also designed (i think) to follow a Chinese theme by looking like an ancient coin. Here's a closer look.

You have to imagine that it's all shiny like a brand new quarter would be.

Happy Canada Day!