Two weekends ago, I ran the KCCA Toronto Peace run. I ran this race last year and thought I'd do it again this year just to see where the fitness was at. I only decided to do it late in the week and they didn't offer registration through the normal channels but did it themselves and then pay through PayPal or you could pay on the day of the race. I thought it would save them a little money if I just paid in cash, but in hindsight that was probably a bad idea since from their standpoint, why would you register someone if they haven't paid?
Anyhow, how I prepared for the race was a recipe of how not to do prepare for the race. I left home early enough and got about 2/3 of the way down to the race site by car when i casually glance down at the passenger seat where I had thrown the stuff that I thought I would need: water bottle, gel, sunglasses and phone. I realized that I had forgot my wallet so I had to turn around to go back. I guess I should have just paid online. Anyhow, by the time I get back to the race site, there's only about 30 minutes to race start and of course I'm not registered so I have to sign up again and they have to phone in my reg info to the timing mat guys. They used the same bibs with the straps that they had last year and I had forgotten the safety pins that I would need to clip the straps to my shirt in my car so I jog back to the car. I quickly jog back to the race site and I notice my HR is spiking, and there's only a couple of minutes to race start. I ended up lining up about half way into the crowd and am trying to do everything to get the HR to reset, but nothing seems to be working. The horn goes off and at this point I'm trying to decide if I should wait or just go. I ended up just deciding to go and treating the run like a good tempo effort.
The first little bit, I just try to maintain a nice steady pace and end up passing quite a few people. About 500 m in, I look down at my watch to get a sense of how fast I'm going and I notice that my HR is reading about 175 which means it had reset. Nice. I noticed my lap pace is about 6:30's whch was a tad fast. I was hoping to go a bit faster than the time I ran last year of 44:03 (6:55 min/mile pace), but I was feeling kinda good and with the HR somewhat normal, I had high hopes.
The route was actually a tad different this year. Overall, the start and turnaround were the same as last year, but they added some slight differences where the route forks into two paths, the out portion would take one fork and then the return path was on the other fork. The km markers were non-existent so I only have GPS splits.
1 mile: 6:31
2 mile: 6:41
3 mile: 6:41
4 mile: 6:49
5 mile: 7:13
6 mile: 6:55
6.4 mile: 2:38 (6:35 min/mile pace)
I ended up passing most people in the first mile. During mile 3, I ended up passing a white-guy which I thought was a little strange, but I realized after that he was Patrick Brown, the leader of the PC party in Ontario. He was going at a pretty good clip. At the turnaround, I see there's only two guys ahead of me, one guy who I'm pretty sure I'm not going to catch and another guy who's only about 15 second ahead of me. They had a timing mat at the turnaround this year so no timing issues like what happened to me last year. Split time of 21:05, but I think this was a bit longer than 5k, maybe 5.1k. So after the turnaround, I gradually try to reel in the one guy I think I can catch and I pull up beside him, but I don't think the guy liked being passed as he sticks with me running right beside me for a while. During mile 5, he pulls ahead of me and charges up the hill, but I think he went up too hard on the hill, as I was able to slowly pull up to him and pass him for good after the hill.
Finish time of 43:33 which was 2nd overall, first in my age group. The route was a bit more than 10k. My GPS says it was 6.41 miles. I measured it last year in Google Earth and that was 10.245km , but I thing the route this year was a tad longer so maybe 20-30m more so I think the 6.41 mile measurement is about right which means I averaged about 6:48 pace for the whole thing which is about the same as I what I ran this spring.
Unlike last year, I ended up going to the awards ceremony and did win an age group prize, a Korean dinner plate set and a glass plaque. They also had a raffle for a tablet, TV and round trip airfare to Korea. So pretty good for only a $25 entry fee. I noticed this year, that there really was an effort to speak more English during the race and afterwards. I think it probably had to do with the fact that there were so many non-Korean politicans around. In addition to Patrick Brown, the premier, Kathleen Wynn was at the race as well as a whole bunch of people from different areas running in the federal election. I can understand if you'ra the local candidate from the area where the race takes place, but why would a candidate from up in Thornhill get special mentioning at the awards ceremony in mid town Toronto, I don't know.
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| Age Group Prize |
When I started the race, I had assumed my HR would be high for the whole thing, but funny enough, no HR spikes as can be seen from Polar data. HR touched 186 once and then hit 185 a few times in the middle. It started to drop after the hill on the way back into the low 180's. I wonder if I could have run faster. I definitely slowed down during mile 6 but maybe I could have kept the HR up for a bit longer.
I'm starting to wonder if 6:50 is my limit for speed. I always seem to hover around that pace when I get tired. This is the same pace that I ran a 10k in back in June and the 8k back in April. Even back in my faster days, I don't think I ever did my LT run's faster than 6:50 pace. I think it may be breathing limit for me as at this pace, I'm generally panting quite hard. If I increase my ventilating limit, maybe it would allow me to go faster. I was thinking maybe if took up swimming a bit more seriously in the upcoming months in addition to doing some more weight training, I might be able to change that.
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