Did the Back's in Motion 10k about a month ago. Did this race two years ago as a marathon pace test run the week before the marathon I was doing at the time as it's relatively close to home. It seemed to work out well that year and the race also fell the week before my spring marathon this year so I thought I would try again.
Like two years ago, the training plan had a 12 mile long run. I had planned to do 6 miles before the race as warmup and then do the 6.2 miles at expected marathon pace, but I only managed to squeeze in 5 or so before the start because I started late and that only meant I had about 5-10 minutes between the end of the warmup and the start of the race.
Goal pace for this was an easy 4:30 min/km or about 7:15 min/mile which equated to a 3:10 marathon.
Tried to start off slow, but hit the first km at 4:19 and first mile marker at 6:49. As usual, too fast. Tried to ease off on the throttle a bit, but the second km is downhillish and so passed the second km at 4:19 also. I should probably also mention, my HR started doing the racing thing right from the start. Just ran through it. From that point on, I kinda hit my splits though they were a tad on the fast side. Two years ago, they messed up the turnaround which caused the course to be long. This year they had the turnaround properly marked with a volunteer dressed up as a big orange pylon with an air horn. No chance of missing the turnaround this year. Bumped up the pace a bit in the last two km to try and pass some people. Nice being able to pass people without actually having to redline.
 |
| At the start. |
| KM | split |
| 1 | 04:19.1 |
| 2 | 04:19.7 |
| 3 | 04:20.4 |
| 4 | 04:26.6 |
| 5 | 04:24.4 |
| 6 | 04:23.3 |
| 7 | 04:26.6 |
| 8 | 04:25.7 |
| 9 | 04:20.8 |
| 10 | 04:15.4 |
So finished overall in 43:42 which was a bit faster than the 45 minutes flat I was aiming for.
Polar stats.
I was working a bit harder then I probably should have, but I thought that since this was after a 5 mile warmup, that 4:30 pace would have felt easier if I was fully rested. At the time, I thought this was looking on the up and up for my marathon which was the following week. Ended up finishing 3rd in my age group. No chance at getting anything higher since the 2nd place guy was under 41 minutes. Ended up with a gift certificate for a pair of diabetic compression socks. I'm not sure if these are the same as the sports compression socks. Will order and see, though I have three pairs of compression socks already, I hardly use them.
There didn't seem to be as much swag this year as two years ago. They do seem to give discounted entry fees to the students (it's a chiroparactic school) so I suppose they don't bring in as much money as a normal race would. Nevertheless, I like this race as it's a challenging course and well put together and has inside warmup and cooldown and actual washrooms. One downside is no chip time. Only gun times, even though they use chip timing.
They did have this Optogait system after that there were giving free analysis for which is a treadmill setup with a bunch of sensors that gives you feed back on your running form. Gives you measurements of a bunch of different things about your gait and any differences between your right and left legs. I apparently have an imbalance where I run with my right leg generating more propulsive force than my left which I suppose is not unnatural since I'm right handed. While interesting to know, not sure what I'm supposed to do to correct it, but I guess that's the point, they want you to sign up for their training to try and fix it. Still as a numbers go, it's very interesting.
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