Lessons learned

It’s not cheating, let’s be clear. But by living and working where I do (five minute walk separates them), means it is very easy when heading out for a run just to follow the lines laid down by the TC 10K or the Victoria Half-Marathon.  So, when race day arrives it means the hills, flats and tight turns are already known. This weekend was the first race, though, where the course was a complete unknown.

So there was some trepidation in lining up for the Running Room’s Victoria version of the Hypothermic Half. How fast to start? Was there some killer hill on the course? How icy was it going to be? How undulating was the terrain? All questions that couldn’t be answered until the first circuit on the course was finished.

First, the good news is about halfway through the first loop it dawned that running around the Victoria airport meant there was likely not a lot of big hills, as that’s not really conducive to landing jets. As that thought was rattling around in the brain, the first hill made an appearance. Nothing too bad, followed by a slight dip and then one more hill, before heading back down to flat countryside (an aside, first time I actually saw Patricia Bay).

The second odd thing was there was stretches where no one was in front of me (running without my glasses limits how far I can see). This posed the challenge of pace. My friend Catherine’s advice is not to worry about time on long runs, so that kept popping into my thoughts and I had to swat it away. This wasn’t just a training run; it was a chance to see how training was going.

Third, though, I wrote earlier about how Victoria is a funny place for a hypothermic half due to the generally mild winters, there were a few wintry moments. Overall, great day for a run and the volunteers had done thorough job of clearing snow from the trail; however, there was a few spots of black ice and tiptoeing at reduced speed was called for. And shout out required:  as I was passing one of the worst spots on loop one there was a few young guys showing up to clear it up; on next pass, so much safer.

The lessons learned:

Trust your training. I chose to run longer training runs and that paid off. At that point when you’re thinking ‘really,’ I knew I could do the distance.

Be more faithful to stretches. Hit and miss best describes the attention stretches, particularly those handed down by the physiotherapist, were given. Twitches and tinges were periodic reminder to do better.

Mix it up: On one of shorter training runs was thrilled to finally get below 5 minute per km, but that was during a speed drill. That wasn’t something I thought I could maintain long term, but this race, by believing and having mixed up training runs, never went above that rate – though came awfully close!

Kick it: No one is going to confuse me with Mo Farrah or Usain Bolt, that is settled. For personal pride, just wanted to have some kick left – so was happy that last kilometer ended up being one of my best.

At the end, it was an excellent way to kick off the 2017 running season. A new challenge, familiar distance and wee bit of winter combined to make it worthwhile. And a personal best.