My training plan leading up to the race was pretty loose - increase my distance slowly, and hope for the best. I wanted to be comfortably running 5k by race day, not scraping it out by the skin of my teeth like before. I was confident I'd set a new PB, but not really sure by how much. As usual, race nerves set in for me early, exacerbated by the fact that my floor hockey team was playing the league championship game just three days before, and my daughter's 5th birthday party was in the afternoon on the same day as my race. I was a little ball of stress, and training went out the window. I ended up doing nothing but sitting on my butt for the two days before the race, which in hindsight was probably not a bad thing.
Race day: I was not impressed to wake up to the sound of pouring rain. If you know Calgary, then you know that humidity and days of total rain are not particularly common here, even in the "wet" season. I had been holding out hope for at the worst an overcast morning, not just for the race but for my daughter's "pool party"-themed birthday later in the afternoon. No such luck. I dug out my shell jacket that's at least one size too big for me, and crossed my fingers that it'd stop raining by the time we got down to North Glenmore.
Of course, it did stop raining, but it didn't even cross my mind to ditch the shell with my husband and kids when he dropped me off and went off in search for parking. And with only a few minutes to race time, there was no way he'd be back to take it from me, and I had nowhere to ditch it. I loathe running with anything tied around my waist, so I opened up the vents and decided to just suck it up. Once the horn blared and we were off, though, I knew that wasn't the right decision. I was sweating almost immediately. Mind over matter was my mantra for the first little bit - I felt like I started strong, and paced myself with a guy who had particularly amazing calves. And when I realized that the first bit of the race was out and back towards the start point, I held out hope that I might spot my family & ditch my shell, but as we approached my hopes were yet again dashed. No sight of them. Around 2k, I had resigned myself to running in my own mini-sauna when I spotted my daughter waving and yelling at me from a parallel path not far away. I yelled for them and peeled that shell off faster than you could blink. I tossed it in the grass for them to retrieve, and was off with a renewed energy. Sweet, cool relief!
The rest of the run was mostly uneventful. I lost the guy with the awesome calves, but I did continue to leapfrog with a few runners around my pace. At one point I saw runners coming back along the parallel path, and was hoping the turnaround point would be soon. I saw one runner and thought I recognized her from somewhere, but wasn't sure who the heck it was. At the turnaround point (which was about 3.5k, since the route back was shorter) I felt like I had somehow found a mysterious energy reserve. I left behind the runners I had been leap-frogging, and pushed myself to run a little harder, and then a LOT harder once I was well past the 4k mark. As I approached the finish, I saw my 5 year old jumping up and down and yelling, and that gave me the incentive I needed to sprint over the finish line. Official time: 32:52! My goal of a new PB was easily achieved.
Shortly after I finished, the mysterious racer in blue that I recognized out on the path came up and said hello. Turns out, I got to meet the wonderful Hammie on my race day! I wasn't expecting to meet any Maniacs there, but somehow she recognized me and came over to say hi. We chatted for a few minutes before I had to pack up and get home to do birthday party prep, I wish I could have stuck around longer! A new PB & meeting my first Maniac, I think I'd call that a successful race.
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