10km Forzani Mother’s Day Race Recap

May 9, 2011 By Leanne Vogel July 18, 2015

What a race! Minus the rain, it was awesome! I couldn’t believe the sheer amount of people…

The group warm up had to have been the coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile. It was so amazing to look behind me and see thousands of hands in the air while we danced to Daft Punk [great music selection!

or, how cold it was.

I thought I was going to die… just kidding. It wasn’t THAT bad once I got going.

We waited forever to start, so I played around with my Garmin.

Since this was my first 10km, my goal was to keep my pace and finish. I just wanted to complete 10km, no matter how long it took me. Thankfully, I wasn’t nearly as nervous as my last race, so it was easy for me to maintain a steady heart rate, I think. It was pouring like crazy so any type of readings from my Garmin were pretty much impossible. The screen kept shifting back and forth between displays. Water resistant? I think not. I had to count half of my intervals. That was fun :| But, my Garmin isn’t broken! I think I would have a heart attack if something happened to that thing.

Surprised…

at how fast the time went. There was no point in the race where I felt like I couldn’t continue. It was smooth sailing. My ankles and knees were really tight at the end of the race but loosened up after a couple of minutes.

Lessons

Yes, those are my glasses in my hand. Never run with my glasses on when it’s raining – get contacts for my next race.

Keep my feet hip distance apart and hit the pavement at the midfoot. I did it for the whole race, like my old coach said and it was pretty effective!

After trying each location, I decided that wearing my race tag at front of my belt was the best decision ever.

Other lessons:

Writing intervals on my hand was a great idea
Buy a good rain sweater
Find a pace buddy and stick to them. I had to find a new one with each interval, but it really helped me stay focused
Buy a water resistant case for my iPod
Keep Garmin screen locked for my next race

Results

I finished at 1:08:51 [according to my Garmin] and an average pace of 6:51. I ran at an interval set of 8 minutes and rested for 1 minute. All in all, I had to stop to walk a total of 7 times or, 7 minutes.

I started off the race perfectly, km 4 was when I realized that my Garmin wasn’t working so I slowed down to fix it. Then again at km 6 and 7. At km 8 I said to hell with it and got back into the zone. Looking at my pace from this race and comparing it to before my patella injury, I’m at the exact same level. I’m not sure if this is discouraging because I’ve been working so hard, or if it’s promising because my injury may finally be behind me. Either way, I’m proud of myself for finishing.

Things I need to work on

focus – get into the zone
keeping hips square instead of bending into them
pushing feet hip distance apart
landing on midfoot
positive affirmations
relaxing upper body

Afterward, my parents met up with Kevin and I so we could take them out for some brunch at The Coup for Mother’s Day. That place never lets me down. I had green eggs no ham – 3 eggs, pumpkin pesto, spinach, topped with basil & pine nuts, served with rice tortilla and organic hash. I also add carrot + apple juice and about 6 glasses of water while we waited for our food. I know I had planned to have a salad, but this was way better.