Toronto Women's Half 2012

This past Sunday, I ran the Toronto Women's Half Marathon. My 3rd half marathon and my 6th event in this series.

I arrived at the Park about an hour before the start time. I mostly hung around the bag check area trying to find Jennie. Gave up as there were too many people there and got into the start corral. Managed to find Jennie and Lyndsay right before we started.

We ran 5/1's together for the first part of the race. It was fun having people to talk to and made the time go by.  We split off around the 9km mark or so. I needed to slow down my pace a bit. I threw in my earphones and turned on my nano and continued on.

I had set my garmin for 8 repeats of 5/1's which wasn't really going to work for 21km. I ended up resetting it about an hour into the race and again about 10 minutes later. So I was kind of running blind for the last hour and a half. I had no idea how long I had been running or where my overall pace was at. I only had the route markers to tell me how far I'd run. It was kind of refreshing. I just ran at a pace that felt good, walked when I needed to and hoped for the best.

While I really enjoy the park setting of all of the TO Women's races, the narrow paths are a bit bothersome. Often got stuck behind other slower runners because the path wasn't wide enough to go by them.

I started struggling a bit around kilometre 13. Just felt very tired both mentally and physically. I ate a bunch of chomps and drank as much water as possible and struggled on.

Around 19km, I passed the chocolate station where volunteers were handing out cadbury thins. The thought of chocolate at that point was disgusting. I took one and managed to fold it up small enough to stuff into my fuel belt. Was much more enjoyable later in the day.

I was very happy to get to the last leg of this race. I saw Jennie near the end and she cheered me on to the finish and I managed to pick my pace up for the last bit and finish strong. My chip time was 2:40:27 so I met my goal of a 2:40 half and beat my PR by 3 minutes.Yay!

Overall, very happy to finish my third half marathon and three races in a month.

Things I liked about the Toronto Women's Half:

• Size - running a smaller race was nice after the 20,000 people at Sporting Life
• Finishers necklace - while I love a giant medal, I like being able to wear my necklace around.
• Park Setting
• Lots of inspiring women runners
• Running with friends
• The friendliest volunteers that I've encountered at any race

Things that could be improved:

• More water stations. I think there were 5 stations. I think at least 2 more would be good. Thankfully ran with 4 bottles on my fuel belt.
• Narrow pathways that are open to the public

TO Women’s Half Goals

3 races in 4 weeks ends tomorrow and I’m ready for a break.

Super excited though for tomorrow. I think that the Toronto Women’s races will also be special for me, cause it’s where I ran my first 5K in August 2010. Tomorrow’s half marathon will be my 6th race in the series.

I’m not expecting huge improvements on my time from the Goodlife Half as it’s only been 4 weeks and I think that the course is going to be a bit tougher (ie. not downhill) and the weather is probably not going to be as perfect as it was for Goodlife.

Goals:

A – 2:40 finish. This would be a bit of a push, but if I pick up the pace during the second half of the race, might be manageable.

B – 2:43 finish (same as Goodlife). Based on my 10K time from two weeks ago, various running calculators put me at 2:43.

C- Finish with a smile.

Spring 2012 – Race Plans

My current plan for the spring is 4 races in 6 weeks. I am registered for all of these so I’m committed.


Toronto Yonge Street 10K on April 22nd.
This is the former Sporting Life 10K, but Canada Running Series and Sporting Life are no longer working together on the race. I registered for this way back in May when the registration was pretty cheap.


Goodlife Fitness Half Marathon on May 6th.
I went back and forth a lot on this race. I wasn’t going to do it because I didn’t want to do 10K, 12K etc in the cold and snow. However, I set a goal last month to take every possible opportunity to enrich my life and decided that this fell into that category. I don’t have high expectations, but I’ll be able to finish. Also, it’s on my 32nd birthday!

Sporting Life 10K on May 13th.
Again, another race I wasn’t going to do, but they were offering a $50 gift card to Sporting Life and registering was $45 so I pretty much made $5! Also, it will be interesting to compare the two 10K’s. They’re both following the same route so the organization will be different.

And finally Toronto Women's Half Marathon on May 27th.
Running Jennie convinced me. I love the Toronto Women’s Runs and will already be through half marathon training so why not?

So that’s the plan for the spring. I was thinking of adding Harry's Spring Run Off into the mix, but maybe not.
Very much looking forward to being done with the cold!

Toronto Women's 5K Recap - October Edition

This past Saturday was the final race of the year for me - The Toronto Women's 5K and 8K.

My original plan for the year was to run the 8K. But I ended up signing up for the 5K for two reasons - It was two week's after the half marathon and I wanted an opportunity to improve my 5K PR.

Saturday morning was quite chilly but Sunnybrook park was lovely with fall colours. I met up with Running Jennie who was also running the 5K. We've been blog/daily mile friends for a while so it was great to meet in person. Jennie contacted me the week before and asked if I wanted to run for her and she would help me get to my goal of running a 5K in the 38 minute range. I've never run with anyone else (other then my husband who is much faster then me and we both end up annoyed) but thought this would be fun so we meet up.

Racing with a buddy was super fun. We chatted the whole way and kept up a decent pace. Having someone to chat with made the race go by fast.

We did 3-1 run/walk intervals most of the time and had enough energy left at the end to finish strong. Completely crushed my goal of running a 38 minute 5K.

New 5K PR

36 minutes 23 seconds

I'm flying! Weee!

This was pretty huge for me. Let's look at my previous 5K times, shall we?

August 2010 (first race) - 41:26

September 2010 - 40:31

October 2010 - 40:17

May 2011 - 39:36

I'm pretty happy with cutting over 3 minutes off my previous 5K time.

Thank you Jennie for pushing me out of my comfort zone! 

Running Jennie's Photo

I learned a couple of things at this last race. First, that I'm not pushing myself hard enough. I've been coasting in my 8min/km zone so I need to work more on my speed. Also, running with other people is fun! I'm going to look into a running room clinic for the spring.

Toronto Women’s 10K

Today marks 1 year since my first 5K and yesterday, I ran my second 10K.

The race kit consisted of the usual flyers, a luna bar and the brightest yellow t-shirt.
I got to the park just after 7. Race time was 8. Had a good amount of time to drink some water, visit the porta potties repeatedly and get ready.
The 10K was divided up better than May’s 5K. I positioned myself in the 60 minutes + group but once we started, it was clear that some there were some people who should have been in faster starting positions. Bit annoying. Also, I saw a couple of 5K people turning around and heading back so they started at the wrong time (5K’s started 15 minutes earlier). The announcements were pretty clear – if you have a yellow bib, get out of the starting line. That really sucks though for them. I’d be very annoyed at myself if I had started at the wrong time and already run half the race.
The 10K course starts off following the usual TO Women’s 5K course which after 3 times running it, I’m pretty familiar with. Than we turn off and run through part of the park that I hadn’t seen before. It was very pretty – over little bridges and along streams. Over to the expressway. Up a hill, down a hill (stupid hills).
I felt good throughout the entire race. I was doing 2:30/1:30 run/walk intervals and kept pretty much dead on my 8 min/km pace throughout the race. That was one of my main problems with the Sporting Life 10K – I went out too fast than struggled later. There were 3 water stops along the way plus I had my fuel belt and some sport beans. I was at the back, but wasn’t concerned about it. I was running the race that I wanted to run and feeling good.
My husband came out to the park to see me finish and he was about 50 metres ahead of the finish line. I was very happy to see him!

I had enough energy left at the end to pick up the pace and finished strong.
Official Time: 1 hr 20m 22s
Chip Time: 1hr 19m 50s
So I beat my Sporting Life 10K time by 48 seconds which I am very happy amount. 1hr 20 minutes was my goal, and I’m 10 seconds under it. I felt good covering the longer distance which makes me feel better about October’s half marathon. And I got a medal and a shirt! Yay for swag!!


Things I liked about this race:

• Course was pretty
• Shirt & medal
• 3 water stations
• The volunteers were great – really supportive and encouraging.
• Post race food – bananas, breakfast pita, chocolate bar, water and bag of chips
• General energy of the racers. I like women’s races.

Things I didn’t like:

• People not positioning themselves properly at start
• There’s a parking lot that we run through at the beginning and end of the race. I hate that parking lot for some reason. Rest of the course is fine.
• Course is open to the public which worked out fine but is a bit annoying.

Toronto Women’s 5K May 2011 Recap

This was my third time doing this race – I did the 5K portions on August and October of last year.
I picked up my race kit from the Running Room on Saturday. A couple of good samples in the kit – a mini luna bar, chap stick, Immunity FX (I keep getting this in race kits and I can’t use it – my immune system wants to attack my joints so it’s not getting any support!).
Fabulous blue long sleeved shirt. I requested a medium but the shirts ran a bit small. Luckily I was able to exchange it after the race.

Sunday morning, I was up early and left my place around 6:45. Had no issues with Sunday morning buses and got to the park by 7:30 (half marathon started at 8, the 5K at 8:20).
The half marathoners went out first in 3 waves. Than all of the 5K’ers were clumped together. There were around 1500 doing the half and 700ish doing the 5K. So not a huge race, but I wish that there were at least signs saying “under 30 minutes”, “35+ minutes”, “walkers”, etc to split everyone up properly. I tried to position myself further back, but there were lots of faster runners dodging people to get ahead and lots of walkers ahead of me that I had to get around.
The race runs through Sunnybrook park which is pretty and green with winding paths. Only problem with this is that you have a ton of people all on a smallish path plus whoever else is in the park that day. There were narrow sections where it was really hard to pass people. This didn’t bother me last year but after running down Yonge Street in the Sporting Life 10K, I appreciate having some space.

The course is and out and back. It was great seeing the leaders coming back. Everyone on the other side of the path cheered for them.
Just before the water station, volunteers were handing out Cadbury Thins chocolate. As much as I like chocolate, it was so not appealing while running. Some people just took them to carry, but I didn’t particularly want to carry a chocolate bar for the rest of the race.
I was slowing down on the way back, feeling kind of tired. As I was approaching the finish line, I looked at my Garmin. I was at 39 minutes – I just wanted to break 40. So I sprinted to the end. Looking at my Garmin splits, the last 500 metres I was running between a 4.5 to a 5 min/km pace. I hit the mat, looked at my watch, saw it was under 40 minutes and leapt into the air. I may have yelled something.

Got my medal and a brown bag full of snacks (more chocolate, a banana, bottle of water, a breakfast pita and a bag of chips) than headed home.

Overall, I really like the Toronto Women’s Races. They’re well organized, not too big and the post race area is always well laid out. The volunteers were great, the energy was fantastic. I’m planning on doing the 10K and either the 5K or 8K in October.
Thinks I liked:

• Shirt (and easy size exchanges)
• Medal
• Beautiful park setting
• Post race food

Things I didn’t like:

• No start corrals for the 5K
• Narrow paths