I have been diligently preparing for this all summer. Most of my long runs have been practicing the pace. I was pretty confident about the pace, but its been a long time since I've spent 5 hours on my feet.
I was as prepared as I could be though. Just not looking forward to 5 hours. Sigh. At least the weather was seemingly going to cooperate! Maybe a wee bit chilly and windy, but decent fall marathon conditions.
Dh and I had to head down early as he had to catch a shuttle to the start of the 5k. He was doing his power walking thing with a group of his co workers. He met up with them and was off. I headed back to the Sheraton to use the nice hotel bathrooms and wait a while in the warmth. It didn't take long for me to run into my posse from the Running Room! That was nice.
Eventually I had to head out to check my bag and make my way to the purple coral. I wanted to be there a bit early so that interested runners could find me. But that meant being COLD!
Finally we headed off, and I had a fairly large group with me and they were all bursting to go! The first few ks were a bit slow but I had planned on that and knew I could make it up by 5k. I did. I enjoy the first part of the course. Lots of interesting parts of Toronto. Sad to run by Honest Eds and seeing it begin to look empty.
The lakeshore was uneventful and we kept a nice steady pace. We hit 10k just a tad ahead of pace. Everything felt good! Lots of happy runners! A Kiza sighting at about 14k!
I wanted to bank a minute in the first half, and I ended up at 2:26:16, so a bit more than planned. We all still felt good!
Now to the boring part of the course. Zzzzz. We kept pace until OMG. I need to take a potty stop. Luckily we were close to a port a potty with no lineup. I gave my trusty sign to my sidekick Batwomen ( yes she was dressed in a batman mask and cape). I told her I was making a pit stop and would catch up by the next walk break! Whew! I did, and I felt much better.
Now the final very long out and back along Eastern ave and Queen. It felt like an eternity. I felt fine but my legs were beginning to tire. I was also getting irritated with my sign, which the wind made difficult to carry. I did have some help though! I finally couldn't take it anymore so I ditched it at the aid station near 33k! Sorry if that makes me a bad bunny
Another Kiza sighting! This time she snapped a cool shot of me with my group
. I began losing some my group in this stretch. Either going ahead or falling off. At the last walk break I told everyone with me that if they felt good they should go and they would be well ahead of their goal.
In the end it was Batwomen and me. I let her push me and ended up a wee bit faster than I wanted to be. 1:09 under goal.
4:53:51
Still I was happy, and Batwomen gave me a huge hug and told me I was awesome. She had a huge improvement over her first marathon. This would be reason 9,999 why I love pacing.
So it was a pretty good day all in all.
Oh, and Dh did his power walk in 49:26
I will say that no matter how fast or slow you run it, a marathon is still 42.2k. And I feel like I ran 42.2 k and could not have done a good job without the proper training put in.
Now for some rest and recovery before Boston training starts!
