Waterfront Half 2013 Recap

7th half marathon in the bag!

I had a lot of mixed feelings going into this race. Hip strain + spotty training for 6 weeks did not put me in the best spot to run 21km.

I got a ride down to the starting area with a friend than hung out in my office for a bit to keep warm. Met up with my running room clinic and we headed to the start line together.

I still had some hopes for hitting my 2:30 half so I positioned myself between the 2:30 continuous and 2:30 10/1 pace bunnies. After standing around for quite sometime we were finally off. When my foot hit the starting mat, I told myself that I'm going to finish no matter what.

The first 7K flew by. I was feeling good, chatting with people from my clinic, cheering everytime I passed a course marker. I was about 2 minutes ahead of my pace band for a 2:30 finish.

Heading onto the Lakeshore, my hip started tightening up. I stopped a couple of times to stretch it out a bit. I turned on my music for a bit of motivation (no idea what I was thinking when I put together my race playlist. Had to keep skipping songs). Still about 1 minute ahead of my pace band.

Kilometre 17 is where everything started going downhill. My hip went from tight to painful. My right glute hurt, my whole quad hurt. My hamstring started cramping up. I must have been overcompensating for my right hip so the left side started hurting. I went from 10/1's down to 5/1's with the occassional road side pigeon pose thrown in to help loosen things up. I debated stopping, but I was so close to the end, I wanted to finish. And really, if I had stopped, I would have still had to walk back to the finish anyway to meet my husband and get the subway home so may as well get a medal.

Smiling through the pain

Alternating between running and limping, I made my way up Bay Street. The crowd support along the way was what kept me going and in relatively good spirits. I just wanted to finish.

Happy to be done! Can't believe I purchased an overpriced race photo!

I finished at 2:33:44, 42 seconds behind my half marathon PR. I'm happy because I did that on an injured leg. But at the same time, I'm frustrated cause I could have crushed my 2:30 goal on a good leg. Oh well.

I stopped off at the medical tent for some ice and a chiropractor tried to loosen my leg up a bit. Limped my way to the subway and back home.

Despite not having the race I wanted, I had a really great time. The atmosphere was amazing, so much energy. The spectators were great, the race was so well organized.

 I'm disappointed that I didn't reach my goal this year of a 2:30 half marathon, but I've got big plans for 2014 so it will come.

Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon 2013 Goals

I've been away from blogging but couldn't skip my usual pre-race goals post. I have a couple of other things in mind that I want to write about (like the name change of my blog) so maybe I'll stop by a bit more often.

So - Waterfront Half Marathon tomorrow! This will be half marathon #7 for me my third time with this race. However, I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow.

My training was going really well through the summer. I was training with my running room clinic, getting my hills and long runs in. I felt good about the progress I was making and even changed my goal time from 2:30 down to 2:25.

Than second week of September rolls around and I end up with a hip flexor injury. I spent two weeks alternating between trying to run (pain) and resting it. Than another two weeks of pretty much no running while on vacation in New Zealand (which was AWESOME! I'll post some pictures soon!). I finally admitted defeat and headed to a physiotherapist this past week.

I've been icing, resting and stretching in hopes that I'll make it through the race tomorrow. My leg isn't feeling bad right now, but in the past 6 weeks, I've done a total of 7 runs. 1 run was 17k, 1 at 13 and the rest 6km or less.

I'm hoping that 3 solid months of training pre-injury and the fact that this isn't my first half marathon will get me through tomorrow. Running for 2.5 hours probably isn't the best idea right now, but I'm going to do it, maybe regret it on Monday. I can take the next two months off if needed.

I do still have some time goals in mind, but I'm not going to feel too bad if I don't beat them:

A - 2:30, my year long half marathon goal.
B - sub 2:33 (my current half marathon PR)
C - finish in upright position

I spent a lot of time thinking yesterday that I need to be okay (mentally) if I need to stop because of my hip and I'm almost there. I think taking a DNF will be more painful to me in the long run than limping the course, so I'm really hoping it doesn't come to that.

With that said, I'm heading to my couch and my ice pack and a few episodes of Downton Abbey to rest up!

Good luck to everyone else racing tomorrow!