I want to write a race report but I'm sitting here with writers block drinking a beer. Perhaps my creativity is a little tapped out (along with my legs). I feel the only option is to resort to point-form:
- I ran 3:09, I am ecstatic with my time. I came into the race looking for a 3:05 and feeling quite confident in it. However, I feel I ran the best possible race under the circumstances and 12 years after my first marathon, finally qualified for Boston. I feel 3:05 and sub-3 are quite possible for me as a runner and are not that far out of my reach.
- Weather was not ideal. Though we dodged the big, nasty weather bullet that the weatherman had been forecasting for Sunday, it was humid as hell. I checked the weather on race morning and the relative humidity was 100%. During the first KM I knew it was going to be a tough day. By KM 3 I was seeing some guys with the backs of their shirts soaking wet. There is no evaporative cooling effect at 100% humidity, even if the baseline temperature is only 17 degrees.
- Racing well is a balancing act and a bit of a guessing game between a) formulating a race plan and sticking to it and b) adapting on the fly and doing what feels right at a given moment. I'd laid out a race plan which would see me roll with the 3:10 pace group until at least 10KM then breaking from the group somewhere between 10 and 14KM, whereupon I would rack up KM splits of approximately 4min 20secs until the end of the race, finishing slightly under 3:05. The starting corral was very loosely packed when I hopped in and I placed myself a bit ahead of the 3:10 bunny. I could see the 3-hour bunny standing just 15-feet away from me and for a couple of excited moments, thought that I should give 3 hours a go after all. Luckily, experience and temperance came to my rescue. Going with the 3-hour group might've been disastrous and might've lead to something like a 3:14 marathon (or worse) with a world of pain and frustration. This is where sticking with the plan saved my ass; I tell you: it could've been ugly had I gone with the 3-hour group.
- In the first couple of km's with the 3:10 group, things felt a little more laborious than they should've been. I met up with some guys whose long run I'd crashed 2 weeks earlier in Gatineau, we chatted for a bit then drifted apart. The 3:10 pack was huge, probably 30 people or so. I was starting to question whether I would be able to negotiate a successful breakaway when the time came. I enjoyed the early km's of the new course and we rolled through the Civic Hospital area, Wellington Village and Westboro without major ado. The crowd support was excellent throughout all of these neighborhoods and the profile was mostly flat, with a few slight downhills. It's a great course to get rolling on. Somewhere around 9km I drifted off the front of the 3:10 group and put some open road between the pack and I. It happened quite on its own and as I was not 'pressing', just basically allowing it to happen. I crossed 10KM in 44 mins, I was a minute ahead of schedule but I had not strained at all to get to that point. It was at this point that I basically had to concede my goal of 3:05, I could tell that my body would not hold up to 32km's of 4:20 pace, after doing enough running and racing, one gets a pretty good sense of what their body is capable of on any given day. This was a deviation from my race plan for which I will probably thank myself for the next 6 months.
- I ran KM's 10-21 more or less on my own. The 3:10 pace group was behind me but close enough that I could look over my shoulder and keep an eye on them. There was no wind on Sunday and I was enjoying the convective cooling effect of being out on my own, rather than jammed in next to a bunch of other sweaty runners. Stopped for a quick washroom break next to the Governor General's and kept on through Rockliffe Park. Sometime shortly after the half I formally rejoined the pack. It was great to have some company and the lonely km's out on the Aviation Parkway slid by. I knew Janet and Charlotte would be at approximately the 27km mark, and found this to be very motivating. It was somewhere around the 25km mark (right near the aviation museum) that I started to have a few doubts about being able to hold pace to get in under 3:10. KM's 25 through 30 were run with the pack and the neighborhoods of Manor Park and New Edinburgh put together amazing cheering stations which were a huge boost. Seeing my wife and daughter at 27KM gave me a great lift as well!
- At about 30KM I again found myself drifting off the front of the 3:10 group. Again, this was just a result of relaxing and going with the flow. The area from the National Art Gallery until the University of Ottawa footbridge was jam packed with people and offered a huge boost, it made for great running. The half marathoners were out on course now and this added enormously to the number of spectators lining the road. I was keeping an eye on my splits and I was holding on to the 4:30's I would need to get in under 3:10.
- From the footbridge until Bronson was a long, lonely stretch. It was here that I had to keep telling myself to stay focused, stay relaxed and try to keep the breathing as rhythmic and deep as possible. I was 'up' a bit on the 3:10 pace group (which had shrunk severely in size), and was starting to hurt quite badly, I wanted to be with the group but I was reluctant to slow down at all to let them catch me. I soldiered on up and over Bronson bridge, then down Lakeside to Queen Elizabeth. At the bottom of Lakeside, for the second time that morning was my lovely mother, out to cheer me (and some others) on. She jogged along with me for 30 yards or so and we had a very quick conversation, she asked how I was doing and I was like "uh, alright, as long as I can keep this pace bunny behind me.." Again, always great to see people you know out on course.
- I got absorbed by the 3:10 group somewhere around Bank St. Bridge heading back downtown. It was fabulous to have some company again. I ran shoulder-to-shoulder with the bunny, off his left shoulder. We talked a little bit about the band at the side of the road, conversation was light and I took it as a sign that I was probably feeling a lot better than many other people around us at that moment. The 40KM arch at Patterson's Creek was a sight for sore eyes (and legs), my view is that if you can make it to 40KM, you've basically got one km to go 'on your own', after that the crowd and the magnetic pull of the finish line gets you in. At 40km I realized that I had my BQ in the bag and that got me right fired up. To be honest, the last 2.2km is a bit of a blur, I dropped what was left of the 3:10 group (only about 5 guys, including the bunny) somewhere after Pretoria bridge. I was really digging the run to the finish line: the crowds, the hurt, the banners counting down the metres. I had a cheeky grin on my face as I put the hammer down on the home stretch and finished in 3:09 flat. It was a most triumphant day for me!
- Fire up the clam chowder, I'm going to Boston!!!
- Aside: Ottawa has made some really positive changes to the NCM course. Not only is the profile a bit flatter, the deliberate move to run the race through more neighborhoods in an attempt to get more people out worked beautifully and the crowd support and cheering stations were unbelievable.
Thanks for reading!
Wes
