Not so Chilly Half

[casual-runner]

Very nice sunny day for this 'Chilly' race with temperature rising from 3-4°C at the start to 6-8°C near the end of the race.

I saw AlfieFromPickering before the race and very strong and relaxed Flexrun during the race. Also deerdree was cheering with the cowbell near the Gulph Line and 5K took my picture near Pine Cove. Thanks for cheering.

It was my training run before the ATB race with simple goal of running slightly faster than my planned ATB pace to eventually beat my last year's time of 1:45:22. I haven't done any tapering , I run 32K last Sunday, 14K last Tuesday, 5K time trial on Wednesday and 11K on Friday, plus regular 100K of cycling.

I was running uneventfully my pace until 19th km, when my pace went down for this and 20th km. In the beginning of 21km pace bunny(1:45) passed me for a moment which mobilized me to increase significantly my pace and finish strong ahead of the pace bunny! My time 1:45:19 - 3 seconds faster than last year!!! Call it progress

[Jo-Jo]

Sounds like you ran this according to plan...with the exception of the tiny little slowing down at 19 and 20km.

But you still got your PB...nice

[5km]

Way to go Wesley!

Great time for a "training run."

Good luck in the ATB!!

[smack]

It was definitely a great day for a race or for any outdoor activity - weather by the waterfront was beautiful. Casual_runner and I must have been fairly near one another at various points through the race based on his pacing chart. I started out feeling great and hit the 10K mark at about 45 minutes which a was touch faster than I had planned but I was in good shape. At the 13K mark I started to feel like I was in less great shape and pulled it back a bit but still felt like things were on track and there weren't a lot of people passing me, though I did start to fall off the back of some of the groups I had been with. Disaster hit just past the 15K mark when my right calf went "sproing" (anytime a body part that isn't involved in reproduction goes sproing, you know it's going to be bad). I wasn't really sure what happened as I was on an open flat part of the course - my calf turned into a giant ball of cramp from that moment. I continued with a slight limp, then pulled up and walked for about 100m to see if that would do anything (other than lose time), which it didn't. After having read ChainSaw Baby's recent dissertation on race selection and particularly injuries, I decided to soldier on. Each km rolled by more painfully than the last and I must admit I spent most of the time rationalizing dropping out (thinking of not making the injury worse) but as I'm a slow thinker, I was at the 20km mark before I came to the conclusion that I should probably pull out. With 1km to go , I uttered a few curse words and started picking up the pace, until the last 400m which I strided out at a full sprint (strangely I recall no pain during this part). Came in at 1:39:13 which is a PB for me of a few seconds, though when you've only run the distance once, the PBs come easy - all in all a beautiful day for a race. I'm fully iced up and compressed as I type this, enjoying what I feel is a well earned low calorie malt beverage. Congrats to all the other finishers out there. Now whatever is wrong with my calf has exactly 3 weeks to heal before ATB.

Stuart

[Doonst]

Good stuff Wes! You too Stuart. See you at ATB!

[AlfiefromPickering]

Congrats on your 3 second improvement....that's a start !!

[Mid_Packer]

I've run Chilly the prior 3 years and we never got the conditions that you did. Good race results for both of you. Keep thinking good thoughts for similar weather for ATB

DAVE

[Tarsals]

Solid work, with some pretty consistent splits too!

[HCcD]

Nicely done, Wesley .... Congrats on the PB ...

[Darth Tater]

Way to go!

[flexrun]

Nice to see that you were able to get back on pace casual-runner and finish strong.

Nice pb Stuart!

We couldn't have asked for a better day!

[5km]

Flexrun

Awesome run yourself - 1:23:07. Congratulations.

I missed seeing you go by at Pine Cove Ave and Lakeshore. You were too fast!

[trixiee]

w00t! 2 RR for the price of one!
Those are awesome results, boys! Good on ya!

[tj]

Great runs all around. Weather was almost perfect, except for the bit of headwind on last stretch on lakeshore.

[QuickChick]

Wesley, I'd take that as a pb if you had run 32km the week before! You would've been way faster with a good taper. Definite progress!! Good luck at ATB.
Stuart, great job getting a pb and soldiering through some pain. Good luck to you as well!

[Marg]

Wow, great running/racing all around.
Seriously Wes, no taper and still faster. Bodes well sir!

[blank]

Seriously Wes, no taper and still faster. Bodes well sir!

+1

Good run Wesley!

[ratherBrunning]

Great job Wesley!! Looking good for ATB!! Good luck!!