Race Review: Collingwood Half Marathon

For my 6th half marathon I ran the Collingwood half on October 3rd, 2015. This is the first time I've ran the same half marathon course a second time. The Run Collingwood race series is my local race and since its' induction in 2013, I have participated each year. The race has a 10km distance (which I ran in 2013) and a half marathon (2014, 2015).

As a runner for about 3 years now, I am starting to settle into running. Running and I are past our honeymoon phase where we sign up for every single race and set enormous PBs in all race distances without even trying. The fact of the matter is running is hard work and can get expensive.

I decided to sign up for my local half marathon to try to run the same course again, cut down on costs (transportation, food, accommodations) and for the obvious benefit that a local race brings: an easier chance to guilt your friends and family to coming to see you run.

I am a big proponent of supporting local in all facets and that doesn't exclude our local run. The race series supports our local hospital, the Collingwood General and Marine hospital. My family has lived in this area more than 3 generations deep so I am sure you can safely assume I have personal ties to our local hospital.

The downfall of doing the same race again, and this one in particular, is losing out on some of those exciting things that come with running a race such as the newness of the experience and of the course. I also regret to share that in the past 3 years the series has been running very little has changed. This may be viewed as a positive in some respects but I now own 3 identical T-shirts and 3 nearly identical medals (the difference being only the date on the ribbon).

Which leads me to the age old question: why do I run? Is it for the swag, the bling, the personal bests? Read on...

flat Amelia ready to go

Race Kit Pick up:
In the two years prior kit pick up has been at least 2 days long. This year it was for one full day (10am-8pm) the friday prior to the race. It's quite the simplistic process of getting a bib, shirt and that's all. This year for convenience sake I had someone else pick up my bib and there was no hassle, no questions asked. This is a benefit of a small town race.

Race day:
The race is always held on a Saturday which I greatly appreciate. It gives me Sunday to still attend church and to rest and recoup a bit before returning back to work as a teacher Monday, where I certainly need as much of my energy as possible.

The weather was cool, about 6 degrees, which I appreciated considering the summer-long issue I fought of constant dizziness, nausea and blurred vision that came after nearly every single run and workout. However it was also quite windy which would provide an added challenge on the course.

Parking this year somehow was a nightmare. The 10km course starts at 8am and the half marathon at 8:30. I was trying to arrive just prior to 8am to avoid being in the way of any 10km racers. The parking lot from last year was somehow shrunken and at 7:50 there were rows of cars, both sides of the street (as you can see in the background of the photo below).

We were allowed to park in an alternative lot. I was able to use the bathroom one last time and wander over to the start with the perfect amount of time left to not stand around freezing or get too overly nervous.

pre-race support crew (+dad taking the photo)

My ideal goal for this race and for a half marathon is 1:45. This is my scary goal, the one I am afraid of telling people as part of me worries it may never happen. I also had a rough summer training wise, and in the last two weeks have been dealing with feet and ankles that lock up and burn as I run. Did that stop me from lining up next to the 1:45 pace bunny and hoping for the best? Of course not. My other two goals were to get anything below 1:50 and then to get a personal best. My current best was sitting at a 1:50:38 from my spring half marathon in Barrie this year.

Well, from about 500m in the ankles started to burn. I stuck with the 1:45 bunny for about 2km and then looked at my watch to see he was running about 4:45min/km and there was no way I could maintain those, nor are they what it takes to get a 1:45. As the course progressed my pace slowed, and slowed. I tried my hardest to get it back but it wasn't happening. I had moments of increased speed when I saw friends and family on the course and during the few slight downhills or when listening to certain spots on my podcast. But overall, my legs were fighting me. The headwind of course put a damper on things as well.

I went into the race knowing that it would be a struggle but was it ever a struggle. There was no honeymoon phase of the first 5 or 10km feeling great and strong. The whole thing sucked. If you'd asked me in the last 5km if I wanted to stop I'd gladly huff "yes" in your direction.

Last year when I ran this course my PB at the time was just shy of 1:55. I ran with the 1:55 pace bunny with a bit of struggle until about 16km where I found new strength in my legs and took off, getting myself a new PB of 1:52:33. I was kind of hoping that this time around my legs would find new strength again, but it didn't happen. Instead, I looked at my watch with 4km to go, realizing I had to be done in 20 min to PB, realizing that meant 5min/km and that my legs, despite my best effort and self-talk were not delivering.

Let me tell you, it's hard to continue running when everything hurts and when you know you wont be getting that personal best. For my 6 half marathons I've ran, I've consistently bettered myself each time (except once, but that one was to be expected). This again adds to my question of "why do I run?". Is it only for the personal bests? I may not be able to get faster and faster each time, is that okay?

coming in to the finish, full of pain

so much pain

Soon I get to stop

Loved my custom shirt

I crossed the finish line at 1:50:47. That's 9 seconds slower than my personal best. However, it is a course personal best from last year's race. Though I felt I should be disappointed in myself, upset and crying, feeling like it was all a waste, I didn't.

I still felt like I gave ALL I had in me. I felt the usual "I'm going to be sick, someone hold me up please". And I felt this overwhelming joy and thankfulness for all the people that support me in my running and love me.

At the finish line I had a mother, a father, a boyfriend, a best friend and my running partner in crime. Also on the course I saw the mother/father/boyfriend trio three times, plus my friend Chris and her son Ty drive by honking, stop to get out to cheer me on and drive by again, as well as my best friend Andrea and her mother and son drive by then stop to cheer me on.

All these people likely had much better things to do on their saturday than watch me run. It was a cold one too, but because they love me and knew how much this meant to me, there they were.

So why do I run? Not for the medals, the shirts, the bibs or the swag (though of course all that is very nice) but rather, I run because I love running. It is a physical and emotional struggle that teaches you how strong you are and how blessed you are. It teaches you what truly matters in life. Though I will still chase that personal best I know what matters most. We will chalk this one up as a success.

National Running Day

Today is National Running Day and what a day it was! I woke up and saw online this image:

And it got me to thinking. First things first I struggled to simplify and put into words why I run, how I run, what I run for and all those things. I decided to try not to over think and so I posted the following to my instagram:

Then I thought, what if I print the template off and give it to the kids. What would they write?

You see, being a teacher runner I try to inspire the kids with my love of running. My colleague and I started an after school run club for grades 3-8. We run it by a sign up basis on Tuesday nights. We run the kids down residential areas behind our school or over on the local track. We even take them down different trails. In fact, just last night we discovered a new and beautiful trail not far from the school. It ran down in a ravine with beautiful embankments and a river running alongside. We even saw a deer go running by. What a great experience it has been running with children. So I presented this "I run..." prompt to the kids in run club. (From my teacher hat it was also a great chance to work on their "because" statements urging them to support their statements).

I then took pictures of each beautiful child holding their response. I can't post those, though I'd love to. I made a collage of them and posted them in the school.

 Upon reading them all I came to some conclusions about running. I laughed at the responses from my two runner colleagues. They too found it challenging to properly respond to the prompt:

 But the kids, especially the young ones, their responses seemed lack lustre and not creative in the least. I found the predominance of the Grade 3s wrote all along the lines of:

Then I realized, this is exactly why kids run. They run because its fun, end of story. They enjoy doing it so they do it. Couldn't we all learn a little from the pure simplicity of children running? 

My grade 4/5s extended their responses a little and added in things like the following:

 Not only because it's fun, but because its "healthy" and it makes them strong. These are not things they have learned from experience, these are things they have learned from others, namely me. It's interesting how they get to an age where they start to listen, learn and apply. (proud teacher!!)

And the highlight proud moment was this one: the beautiful child that likes run club for the opportunity to spend more time with her teacher, me! Children naturally idolize the important people in their life and want to be just like them, whatever that may be.

I am thankful for the chance to be a positive role model (the best I can be) in these kids lives. Happy National Running day from this teacher runner!