my first race of the year was supposed to be Harry's Spring Run-off, an 8k race held every april in high park in toronto. the Harry's race is a pretty big deal in the running community and i'd been looking forward to starting off 2009 with this race. however, procrastination got the best of me and i missed the registration deadline. to keep my early season race plan on track i started looking for another race being held on the same weekend and came across the Philly's Fools 10k in Whitby, which i promptly registered for.
i wanted to use this race as a way to set the bar for the rest of my 2009 racing year; a race that I could look back at later in the year to compare my 10k times to determine if i had been improving. in terms of actual race time, i was there to try to beat my previous personal best 10k time of 41.49.
my race plan for this day was to go out hard for the first 1k, settle into my race pace and then go hard for the last 2k. off the starting line i broke into the lead and pulled away from the pack, on the heels of the cyclist leading the runners through the course. i felt strong when i reached the 1k mark, but my excitement got the best of me and i wasn’t able to settle. i held onto a pace of about 3.25/km for the first 3km and quickly started to fade as the race progressed. i reached the 5k mark about 70 seconds ahead of my nearest competitor and i could here him catching up to me as I headed into the second half of the race. at the 7k mark he overtook me, broke ahead, and left me in his dust.
i ended up finishing in 2nd place. i’d exhausted myself by not sticking to my race plan; i’d gone too hard too soon and i’d paid for it by losing such a big lead.
however, I finished with a time of 38.27, more than 3 minutes ahead of my previous personal best. i was thrilled! this finish was proof that i’d had a great off-season and that my fitness level was good. my overall finish became irrelevant and i headed home feeling optimistic about my 2009 race year. it was clear that i’d improved my run times over the winter, but how would my cycling times improve? would they improve at all? at this point in the year i was still about 6 weeks away from my first test on the bike, which seemed like an eternity.
