Tag Archives: Fall Classic

2011 Fall Classic

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Today was the 2011 Fall Classic; making this year 28 of this race in Edmonton. Proceeds of this race benefit the mustard seed charity here in Edmonton. Great cause and a great race. There are 5 mile (8km) and 10 mile (16km) events. This year I did the 8km.

The race was well-marked and had a lot of great volunteers. It was a loop and then an out and back course. I enjoyed the course quite a bit the only thing that was a bit tough was the turn around seemed to take forever to get to. I ran the race in 43 minutes, which placed me 41st out of 167. My personal race went okay at 4km I had to walk for a minute because my stomach started to act up and I thought I my have a bathroom emergency on hand. My stomach settled a bit and then I went on my way in slight discomfort. Then again at about 6.5km I walked for 30 seconds to trying to relieve some stomach cramping; after it settled enough I kept going finishing in 43 minutes. Not too bad my goal was 41 minutes so not too far off. I would have made my goal if my stomach did not act up but that’s life!

I will defiantly continue running this race year to year! Also my Friend ran an amazing race; she took first in our age category and 9th overall with a time of 36 minutes!

This week is the last Wednesday night race and then I am off to Jasper (favorite place in world) Friday for work so I will get some great training in there! I am thinking of doing the Halloween Howl 10km as well but we will see how things go!

 

2011 Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon

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This thanksgiving Jesse and I spent the weekend in Victoria. For 2 reasons; 1) to visit my best friend and 2) run the Goodlife Fitness Victoria 1/2 marathon.

This was an amazing race and a good personal race for myself. The course was fast but not flat. There was enough elevation change to make it interesting for a road marathon. I decided to run this race by doing 10 and 1′s. This is running 10 minutes walking one and staying diligent to this regardless of feeling great or shitty. After the first 10 minutes it took all of my will power to stop and walk for a minute. My course goal was under 2 hours or 2 hours flat. I ended up running a 2:04, which was 4 minutes off my goal and finished in the top 50% of my age category.

None the less I was really happy with this time for a few reasons,

  • I have been having horrid stomach problems as of late
  • I have been training for XC and trail exclusively

In retrospect I could have run a 2 hour for sure.

The day before the race I did a 4 km prep run out onto the breakwater and along Dallas road; it was awesome and a good warm up to elevation change. But for some reason my Garmin decided not to record that run; it has been doing that every so often.

There were 6000 people in the half marathon it took me about 5 minutes to get over the mats to start the race and then I had to do some heavy recon to pass a crap load of people to get in good position. My first 10km was done in about 55 minutes so my split time was really off; this is what pisses me off because I didn’t push out the last half properly. I slowed down on 2- 10 minute sets, which I think cost me that extra time. However it was a great race environment and a well organized course. Aid stations were positioned perfectly and they had a TON of volunteers helping out. Kudos to them. The finish of the race was great the finish shoots were easy to get around and then the food was right there! Next year we will be going back to Victoria to run this again or might go to Kelowna to spice it up. This defiantly will not be the last time I run this marathon.

In other news – The Wednesday night races come to a finish next Wednesday. Always sucks because they are so fun. On Sunday I am running the 5 mile in the Mustard Seed Fall Classic. My legs have been like cement the last few days after the 1/2 and training runs have not been stellar to say the least. Hopefully they can pull it together for Sunday. Ooks race this weekend in Camrose so I will be out there coaching. It will be a bittersweet day because Camrose is my FAVORITE XC course of all time and I have run so well on it; but it is exciting to watch other people compete and enjoy it. I may or may not take them on a run through of the course before the race so I get to run a bit of it!

Photo from Victoria – The best suffer face ever! I am also too cheap to buy them so I take screen shots!