2014 Toronto Yonge St. 10K Race Report

Since I started training for the Ironman, my desire of running road races had to be curbed. After all, I am coming off a hip injury and I have to be careful. I have heard this from my coach countless times. When this race finally showed up in my calendar, he said that I can run it, but not race it. But... but... HOW am I going to put on the brakes on Yonge St.? With a few bumps here and there, it is a net downhill. Trust me, I've set my previous PR there 2 years ago. And, what about my "40 steps to 40" goals? I wanted to improve my 10K and 5K times this year. Will I even be able to run again after the Ironman? I may just DIE there!! Anyway, you can imagine all the scenarios playing in my head over and over again.

However, one thing for sure, I was calm. I went to pick up my race kit on Saturday and spent a total of 3 min at the expo since we were late for spectating a soccer game. I literally ran through the venue and didn't think too much about next day. When I went to bed that night I had yet to decide what to do. Woke up at 6am, and surprise surprise, I still had no clue. Seriously, the only strategy I had was to "put a foot in front of the other, don't step in a pothole or roll your ankle on the tram tracks, breathe, drink if you're thirsty, enjoy the sunshine and most important, stay alive". Also, not looking at the damn Garmin. That could only bring headaches with all the GPS bounce around.

The other "problem" was that I had to do 17km since it was a long run day, and no race was supposed to interfere with the schedule. I decided to run 3km before the race as a warm up and 4km after, then hop on the subway and go back to my car, then drive home.

I parked my car near the starting line, then went on a mission to find my friend Carol and the washrooms. It was still early, so I got to the port-a-potties first. No lineup, yay! No paper either, so I had to switch stalls because I needed to do both 1&2. Thankfully I noticed soon enough. Found Carol too, then we started our little run. Went back to the car and dropped my hoodie, took a sip of Gatorade and off I went on my own to continue warming up the legs, tired after the 3h30 trainer ride that I had done the day before. Of course legs felt like crap. By the time the warmup ended, I was convinced that I was going to suffer during the race and I should just take it easy. Rejoined Carol at the starting line, just behind the 50min pacer.

We must have stayed there about 10 minutes, then the gun went off and I lost Carol instantly. She wanted to finish under 50min, which meant running ahead of the 50min pacer. I was left to my own devices once more. And so I started running rather conservatively, but letting the gravity do its thing, carefully keeping my exertion levels in check. No puffing, no huffing. Stay relaxed. No peeking at the watch!! Then, I don't know what happened, but I noticed that I was catching up with the 50min pacer. I was telling myself that he knew how to put the brakes on the hills, and I was failing miserably at it. But I was feeling good, so why not? It was all part of the plan, to let the legs do their thing.

Then I saw a guy with a pink sign that said "Forget calm, run like hell". And it must have planted a little seed of doubt in my abilities to really stay calm. Shortly thereafter I ended passing the 50min pacer and my competitive spirit kicked in. I also noticed Carol about 100m in front of me. I had no plans to catch her at that moment, I was still a bit puzzled by the situation with the pacer. Should I stay or should I go? I wondered if I could stay ahead of him for a while... But then I noticed that I was also catching up with Carol. Uh oh. Was she slowing down? I told her she's not allowed to! With 2.5km to go I managed to get close enough to her to give her a slap on the butt and I said "told you not to let me catch you!" And she sped away from me. Attagirl!! I continued chasing her ponytail and before I knew it, I was over the Bathurst bridge and on the last stretch towards the finish line.

I wanted to finish strong, and of course, ahead of the 50min pacer. I did not let him catch me either and crossed the finish line in 49:03. I could not be happier that I beat both my 10K and 5K PRs, just as I wanted. Based on the official time set on this same course 2 years ago, I improved my 10K PR by 4min 47sec, and I even did a negative split. My fastest 5K is now 24:10. Two more items crossed off the list!! Wooohooo!

At the finish area I grabbed a banana, my medal, said goodbye to Carol and off I went again. I still had 4km to run, which I did along the Lakeshore and back to Yonge St. Hopped in the subway, but not before a little old lady asked me if I won the race and I had to explain to her how I did this "just for fun" and that there were people much faster than me out there.

I'm pretty sure that my legs didn't agree with my definition of "fun" for that day, but eventually they stopped pouting and I could go back to my regular training schedule, all without a single Advil.

For not "racing" that day, I definitely blew it. But sometimes, you just have to follow your heart. I ran completely by feel, did not look once at my watch and I ended being pleasantly surprised. Of course, this would be quite irresponsible to do on longer distances, but since I've met all my time goals for this year, it should be much easier to keep myself in check from now on. That's all, folks!

One step ahead of the other

I am running out of ideas to occupy my anxious mind, so maybe listening to the last episode of the Step Ahead podcast and reminding me that marathons can go well despite of everything else happening around in the universe isn't a bad idea... If only I wouldn't cringe every time I hear my voice. Here you have it, in which I talk about falling from the sky in the middle of the Marathon de Paris and setting a new PR at Toronto Yonge St. 10K. I also talk about... what again? Gosh my mind is fuzzy, I should ask Carol, my friend and host of Step Ahead. Pickle juice, or rather drinking brine to avoid hitting the wall (I have my bottle ready for tomorrow!), see-through t-shirts, the lack of portapotties in Paris and other nonsense. But it's a lot of fun when done under a good dose of endorphins that just won't go away. If you listen all the way until the end, you'll get a glimpse into the effects of marathon induced euphoria. Happy listening!

Yonge St.10K Race Report

Not many news in the past weeks, I know, but I've been super busy with work and travel and after the Paris Marathon it took 5 more days until I put foot back down on Canuck soil. Good news is that I recovered super fast - for 3 days after I was quite slow walking and especially going up and down the stairs, but by the end of the week I was feeling really great and went for my first recovery run on Friday. Then on Sunday, BAM! another race for which I had signed up in December, the Toronto Yonge St. 10K.

I've always wanted to run down Yonge St, the equivalent of Champs Elysees in Toronto, so I jumped at this opportunity when I was presented with the super early bird price last year. It's just that I hadn't planned to run a marathon a week earlier, that would have been quite a silly move. Well, there I was though, ready to rock and roll. On Saturday I had to go to the French Consulate to vote in the presidential election anyway, so I took a stroll after the vote down Yonge St to pick up the race kit. That was quickly done then I returned home where I rested my bones and kept making plans about driving to the race the next day.

I ended up driving to the start rather than the arrival because I preferred to rely on public transportation without the pressure of time. I parked in one of the best hidden parking lots that I knew which was a few hundred meters from the start and spent about 30 min in a Starbucks sipping a mocha. It was cold, brrrr, just 4 Celsius. I still had one hour to waste, so I went back to the car, dropped my second pair of pants that I was wearing on top of the running tights, then walked my way to the corrals. I was in the green corral, but waited until 15 min before the start to move into my spot as I was trying to time the emptying of my bladder just right.

Operation portapotty successful, then I moved to the front of my corral as I was expecting to be a tad faster than I had planned at the end of the previous year. My corral started running 6 minutes after the gun time at 9:06am and from then on, it was all schuss. Compared to the previous race, this one went by like a blink of an eye. My Runkeeper was telling me that I was running some incredible 5-and-something pace, so I didn't pay too much attention, I thought it was all GPS bounce, after all, it was clearly ahead of the official km markers. I paced myself after another girl in short shorts a few leg lengths ahead of me and took in the energy of the race as much as I could without stressing about my finish time. I was pretty sure I'd finish under 1h and that was all that mattered. I passed the girl around km 7 when she stopped for a drink and I didn't see her again after, I imagined that I had become her pacer for a change.

I tried to speed up and race my lungs out in the last 2k, but I definitely did not want to go all out. I could see the finish line way ahead and that motivated me to stay strong and do my best time ever, 53:49 for an average pace of 5:15min/km. NO idea where that came from, but I take it. :-) I blame it all on the incline, that, and my shin splints the 4 days that followed. I don't even know what to do with this time, it still sounds surreal. I'll definitely keep it in mind for future downhill races. For now, I pat myself on the back for not snapping a tendon, twisting an ankle or popping out a knee.

And that's about it... After crossing the finish line I drank a few cups of water, had my official picture taken, then walked back to the streetcar that took me to the subway, that took me to my car, that took me back to my home and to my couch. I didn't see the party nor the food. I was in my own la-la land, bathing in another bucket of endorphins. Maybe I should stop racing for a while, I think I am becoming a junkie. Well, one more push, the Mississauga Marathon on May 6, that is now 8 days away, YIKES!!

Runkeeper Link.