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Race Report: Sporting Life 10K

May 14, 2018 By

sl10k

Wow. A race report. It’s been forever since I wrote one of these things, mostly because it’s been forever since I ran a race worth reporting on. Last year most of my race plans went up in flames when my right knee got an abrupt and agonising introduction to the cement floor in my garage. Then I went away to South Africa for a month, and when I came back, I had one setback after another.

A part of me was dreading the Sporting Life 10K. It was to be my first 10K race in about two years, and I’ve been struggling to get anything over 5K. When I registered for this, there was plenty of time. It was February, I was running regularly, everything looked good. But the time got whittled away by injuries, a bizarre sports bra issue that is another story for another day, a bout of strep throat and one cold after another.

But I was going to run this race, come hell or high water. I didn’t care if I was miserable doing it, all I knew was that not doing it was not an option. But I sit here now with aching legs just over 24 hours since my wave took off from the start line, glowing in post-race euphoria.

Was I fast? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I finished the race, and what’s more, I loved every single step. Before I get into it, I want to give kudos to the organizers of the Sporting Life 10K. This is a big event that draws massive crowds, but everything ran smoothly, from the bag drop at the start right through to the loading of the post-race shuttle buses at the end.

The training

I have to give major props here to my coach, Phaedra at PK Performance Coaching. She provided me with a solid training plan that I followed as closely as possible in spite of the setbacks. And when things were not going well, she was always just an email away, ready to give me advice and words of encouragement. If you are a struggling athlete in search of accountability and structure, check out PK Performance Coaching. I promise, you won’t regret it. The best part is that you don’t even have to be local, because Phaedra does everything via the magic of the Internet.

The gear

The clothing I picked for the race was perfect for the weather. I was wearing calf-length running tights and a super-breathable T-shirt that was cool, comfortable and looked good (because race photos, people). My Midsummer Night’s Run hat and my trusty New Balance shoes completed the ensemble. It was a chilly morning, and I had goosebumps after I took off my jacket so I could check my bag. But I knew that I would fare better than the runners who were wearing long-sleeved shirts beneath their race T-shirts.

I did have an unexpected glitch with my clothing, though. My recent focus on clean eating has not yielded any results on the scale, much to my frustration. But as it turns out, I have started losing inches, and my running tights kept sliding down from my waist. I had to keep hoiking them up until I figured out a way to tighten my fuel belt enough to keep them up. A pleasant, if inconvenient problem to have.

Nutrition

As mentioned above, my overall eating habits have undergone an overhaul in the last couple of weeks. I am a lot more conscious of what I am putting into my body, and in general my energy levels and ability to concentrate have improved. In spite of my spate of colds, I had hopes that my improved nutrition would help me on race day.

In years gone by, my go-to pre-race meal has consisted of a peanut butter sandwich. This time, I decided to do something different. About an hour before the start, I had a strawberry banana smoothie. It was a little sweeter than I generally prefer first thing in the morning, but it gave me an infusion of energy without making me feel weighed down.

Warm-up

I’m usually terrible at warming up before races. There’s a part of me that thinks, why would I use up valuable energy when I have an entire 10K ahead of me? I should save it all for the race! I know that’s ridiculous, of course. My son is a track athlete, and warmups are a big part of his competitions. I see the correlation time and time again: on days that he does his warmups properly, he performs better.

Phaedra’s training schedule for the race included a ten-minute warmup. I had plenty of time and no excuses, so I did a slow warmup jog followed by some of the drills that my son does with his athletics club. A few strides and some gentle stretching, and I was done.

Did the warmup have an effect? Absolutely. I usually struggle for the first kilometre or so of a race, but I didn’t have that problem this time. When I was released from my starting corral, I was warmed up and ready to settle into the run far more quickly than usual.

The race

I went into the Sporting Life 10K with the benefit of having run the course several times in the past. I knew where the easy bits were and where I might need to rein in my pace a little. As 10K races go, this one is an easy coast down Yonge Street. Most of it is either downhill or flat, with just a couple of gentle uphill slopes along the way.

I knew that most of the long downhill stretches were in the first half of the race. I also knew from prior experience that it might warm up quite a lot during the second half. And so I expected the first 5K to be easier and faster, and that was what I planned for. I wanted to capitalize on the early downhills and cooler temperatures while keeping enough gas in the tank for the finish. I stuck to my strategy, and resisted the temptation to go faster than my target pace even when I felt that I could.

It paid off. I finished about two minutes off my goal time, but I didn’t crash and burn near the end the way I have so many times in the past.

Post-race

This race had the longest finish line chute in the history of finish line chutes. When you cross the finish line, you walk for about ten minutes before you get your post-run water. Five minutes further, you get your medal. Finally, five minutes after that, you can grab your post-race food.

I can understand why it’s set up this way: with 20,000 participants, this is one of the biggest racing events in the city. In retrospect, I think it was good that they kept us moving for so long after the finish. It was like an enforced cooldown.

What I take from this

My biggest gain here, apart from the accomplishment of finishing 10K, is a boost in confidence. This race was a good litmus test for me. I now know that I have it in me to accomplish the goals I have set for myself, and I have a fairly good idea of the work that’s needed in order for me to get there. My next race – the Durham Quarter Marathon – has a couple of big hills on it. It will be tougher, but I know I can do it.

Filed Under: Race, running, Sporting Life 10K Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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A Young Athlete’s Journey Of Discovery

October 8, 2013 By

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Tomorrow, my 7-year-old son James will be trying out for his school cross-country team. As a runner, I am delighted. As the daughter of a former elite marathoner, I am downright thrilled. From wherever my dad is now, on the other side of the mortal divide, I’m sure he is smiling down on his grandson and namesake with pride.

Tomorrow’s try-out won’t be James’ first exposure to running. He ran his first race when he was just 5 years old. It was a 1km run for kids aged 5-12, meaning he was one of the youngest participants. He finished right around the middle of the pack, in seven minutes. It was a very good showing for a 5-year-old running his first race. About a year later, he ran another 1km race. He finished it in just under seven minutes, in spite of a large hill and the fact that there were hundreds of kids taking part. Then, this Spring, James made the relay team at his school.

So he is no stranger to athletics, and even at 7 years old, he kind of looks like a pro. Almost everyone who sees him run comments on how magnificent he looks. He has a beautiful natural form, a balletic fluidity that I can only envy. There is no awkward shuffling or ungainly loping. When James runs, he truly looks as if he was born to run. He is like Mother Nature’s model of perfect engineering.

What James has in pure physical technique, though, he lacks in strategy – at least where cross-country running is concerned. Strategy is something that is gained from experience, and he just doesn’t have enough of that yet. And so he makes the same mistake that I sometimes make, even with all of the miles I have on my legs: the mistake of taking off like a rocket and then running out of steam.

I have been trying to counsel him ahead of tomorrow’s try-out.

“Start slower,” I say, “And then you’ll be able to keep going for longer.”

But it’s so hard for him to understand. To a 7-year-old’s literal mind, it’s hard to reconcile the idea of going more slowly with the reality of racing. And my gut is telling me to go easy on the advice and give him enough space to discover for himself what his true running style is.

It is easy for me to be emotionally vested in the outcome of my son’s athletic efforts,  because it creates a link that unites him with the grandfather he never got to know. But I need to remember that he is not doing this for me. He is doing it for himself. He made the decision, without any prior discussion with me, to go for this try-out. It would not  be right for me to start having expectations, or to behave like the scary moms in shows like Toddlers And Tiaras.

I have already equipped James as best I can. I have advised him on strategy and pacing, and now it is up to him to go out and find his own way in his athletic endeavours. Maybe he’ll burn out in the try-outs and discover that he is better suited to sprinting. Or maybe he will find his rhythm and earn a place on the cross-country team.

No matter what happens, this is not my journey of discovery, but James’. I hope that he can learn from his failures and embrace the successes.

I already know that he has the legs of an athlete. Now it’s up to him (with Mommy close by, of course) to develop his athlete’s heart.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.

Filed Under: Athletics, Cross-Country, life, parenting, running Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Oasis Zoo Run: Outrunning The Old Me

September 27, 2011 By

I was more than a little nervous going into the 10K Oasis Zoo Run on Saturday. I had not run at all since the Energizer Night Race two weeks previously, I wasn’t entirely sure that I was completely recovered from my cold, and there are a lot of hills at the zoo. The old me would have shown up to this race and been content to just complete the run with no real concern for the time. There would have been no strategy, and the pacing would have been designed to just do the distance and no more.

Thanks to the Energizer Night Race, however, the old me was off pouting in a corner somewhere. The old me was not allowed on races anymore. The new me had a goal apart from just finishing the race. And along with that goal came a plan.

My goal was to beat my previous 10K PB (personal best) of 1:05:39. I figured that aiming for a time of 1:05:00 would provide me with enough of a buffer to allow for variances between the GPS on my training watch and the official race course.

I planned to run the first half in 33 minutes and the second half in 32 minutes. I worked out what my average pace needed to be and I set that up on my training watch. I hydrated and warmed up and did everything you are supposed to do before a race.

It felt very odd, standing at the start line with the intention of racing strategically. Runners were released from the start line in five waves, each wave starting five minutes after the one before. I was in the fourth wave, and I placed myself close to the back of the pack to avoid the intimidation of hordes of runners passing me.

Once I started running, I settled quickly into a rhythm. The Zoo Run starts off in the zoo parking lot, and takes runners past a row of porta-potties (the vision of scores of runners sprinting by while holding their noses is a quite sight to behold) and onto local streets for the first couple of kilometres. This part of the race is flat: a nice warm-up for runners before the course loops into the zoo itself for the remaining 8km. Once you’re in the zoo, you are running hills. While the hills are nicely balanced – the uphills are generally matched by corresponding downhills – they still make the run more challenging.

I maintained my pace well enough in the first half, finishing the first 5km in 33:15. At that point, I was feeling strong enough that I didn’t think it would be a problem to make up the fifteen seconds. But then, right after passing the 7km mark, something happened. I started feeling a little flaky. I was too hot and I felt vaguely nauseous. It got bad enough that I actually had a fleeting thought of bailing on the race. I have never, ever started a race that I haven’t been able to finish. I slowed to a walk so I could drink some water (thus making me grateful for my habit of always bringing my own water on races instead of relying solely on the water stations), started running again, and told myself that I would see how the next five minutes went.

Whatever the feeling was that had come over me, it completely passed by the time the five minutes were up, and by this time I only had 2km to go. Despite my setback, I still had a shot of making that PB, and I picked up my pace. I had another weak moment towards the end of the ninth kilometre, but that went away quickly, and I ran the last kilometre as hard as I could. With about 400 metres to go I dug deep and sprinted. By the time I turned the corner and saw the finish line ahead of me, my legs were shaking.

My official time was 1:05:28. I did not make 1:05:00 as planned, but since that had been a buffer goal anyway, it didn’t really matter. Far more important was the fact that I beat my previous PB by 11 seconds. Out of 145 finishers in the “Women 40-44” category, I was 57th. Being in the top 50% in my category, and making a PB to boot, was victory enough for me.

(Photo credit to the author.)

Filed Under: Oasis Zoo Run, Personal Best, Race, Race Strategy, running Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Is Finishing The Race A Good Enough Goal?

September 26, 2011 By

When I came back to running two and a half years ago, I came back from a zero-level of physical fitness. For several years my body had been completely devoted to growing babies and then nursing them. My mind had been devoted to trying to survive post-partum depression, the loss of my father, and my son’s autism diagnosis. With everything that I had going on, physical fitness just wasn’t on my list of priorities.

Therefore, when I started running again, speed was not an issue for me. My only goal was to simply get out there and complete whatever distance I was aiming for. Standing at the start line of my first half-marathon for autism, I was realistic enough to know that I wasn’t going to be a speed demon. I did not aim for any particular time. I just wanted to finish the race; I did not care how long it would take me.

Since that first half-marathon, I have run 12 more races. My approach to each of them has been the same: stumble across the finish line in whatever time I can manage. I have looked at my races not so much as competitive events, but as training runs with added zing.

Two weeks ago, though, I came to within a minute of my 10K PB (personal best) at the Energizer Night Race. This was a race run at night, on narrow park trails, with this weird headlight thing on my head. Most amazing of all, I actually had energy to spare when I crossed the finish line.

That race was a turning point for me in two ways. The first was that it made me re-evaluate the role of music in my runs. The second was that it made me ask the question: if I can put in a performance like that without really trying, what will I able to accomplish if I push myself beyond what I am used to?

I have been a somewhat complacent runner, being happy with just finishing the race. I still advocate that approach very strongly for beginner runners. But I am not really a beginner anymore. Perhaps it is time for me to start pushing the boundaries a little.

Tomorrow: read about how a change in race strategy this weekend worked out for me.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdd/3524924669. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Energizer Night Race, goals, pacing, Race, Race Strategy, running Tagged With: , , , , ,