2015 has come and gone... and so has the first month of 2016!

I guess it's time to finally post a year in review.

At the beginning of 2015, I decided on three main goals for the year: my first 50 miler, ENDURrun, and a fall marathon. Here's how they went.

50 Mile
My first 50 miler. Rock the Ridge in New Paltz, NY.
It went better than I could ever imagine.  I headed into it with an "A" goal of 7:45, thinking that would only happen if all the stars aligned... but I somehow managed to finish in 7:39:24, taking 2nd place female!

I truly enjoyed this race and was running with a smile on my face through most of the race.

ENDURrun
Three weeks before ENDURrun, I stupidly jumped my weekly mileage up by 20 miles. I new it was a dumb idea, but mentally, I felt like I needed to have a 70+ mile week. I hated how low my mileage was in June and July and I needed a confidence boost.... a confidence boost and a sore ball of the foot. Whoops. Turns out I sprained my second toe on my left foot.

So.... needless to say, this event did not go as well as it did the year before. The foot was mostly OK, but it acted up on a few of the stages. I did manage to run a faster 15K (stage 2) and 30K (stage 3) and felt fantastic during those stages. I almost dropped out of the race during stage 5 when I was in pain for the first two laps of the 5 lap course. I told myself that if it still hurt at the end of lap 3, I was out. But... the pain went away and I actually enjoyed the last 3 loops of this course. I saw my chiropractor immediately after this stage. She gave me a mini lecture, telling me again to STOP WEARING FLIP FLOPS (not while running of course.. haha.. but post race, and just walking around, etc) but also told me to finish ENDURrun since there were only two stages left, This time I listened. Too bad I love flip flops. I miss them. I used to live in them as much as possible.
So back to the event... I ended up finishing the week in a very similar time to my 2013 result, which I was fine with. This year... this year it will be much better. :)

I wrote about each stage as they happened. These recaps can be found here: August posts.

Fall Marathon
In October, I ran the County Marathon. I won't go into details, since I wrote all about the race here.
I went into the race with a goal time of sub 3:30 and finished in a net time of 3:27:52, a PB by almost four and a half minutes. I was definitely happy with how this race went.


Some other races happened as well.. and they went mostly well.
Below is a list of all races I raced or participated in during 2015 and my results.

January
- Frosty Trail 6 hour (as a training run) - 52.5 km, 2nd female.

February
- Re-Fridgee-Eighter 8 Mile - 59:55 - 5th female.

March
- Around the Bay 30K - 2:22:07 - 111th female.

April
- Marden Half Marathon - 1:39:24 - 5th female.

May
- Rock the Ridge 50 Mile - 7:39:27 - 2nd female.
- Seaway Run 4 Jump 5K - 21:41 - 1st female

June
- Niagara-on-the-Lake 50K - 4:26:45 - 5th female.

July
- The Limberlost Challenge 28K - 3:16:09 - 6th female.
- Dirty Dash 8K  - 42:06 - 2nd female.
- Downtown Kitchener Mile - 6:26 - 5th female.
- Health & Performance 2.2K - 9:21 - 13th female.

August
- ENDURrun - 15:12:56 - 8th female

September
- Harvest Half (ran as a marathon race pace workout) - 1:45:57 - 10th female.
- Laurier Loop 10K (ran as a progression run workout) - 49:49 - 6th female.

October
- The County Marathon - 3:27:52 - 5th female
- Oktoberfest 5K - 21:16 - 13th female.

November
- REMEMBERrun 11K - 51:18 - 3rd female.

December
- Santa Pur-Suit 5K - 22:08 - 6th female.

So there you have it, 2015. There have been lessons learned. Now to put those lessons to use and come out with a fantastic 2016! My first race of the year will be the Re-Fridgee-Eighter 8 mile, which is coming up soon in just 2 weeks. Wish me luck!

The County Marathon - October 4, 2015

As I mentioned in my last post, my drive to Picton took longer than usual, but I was still there in plenty of time to swing by the Crystal Palace to grab my number, shirt, etc.and to meet up with Pat, his family, and Kyle, who were already having lunch at Coach's Pub just a block or two down the road.

After consuming a wrap and some fries, it was time to head to Barley Days Brewery, which was conveniently on the way to Pat's cottage and was also one of the sponsors of the race. 

Pat and Kyle at Barley Days

After some samples and purchasing some bottles of Wind & Sail Dark Ale (4), Harvest Gold Pale Ale (2), and Snake Bite Apple Ale (1), we headed to the final destination of the day: Pat's cottage. 

Pat's Cottage, on Lake Ontario

 

After getting settled in at the cottage and getting race clothes, etc ready for the morning, Christian (another friend from ENDURrun) and his wife stopped by and we had a pasta dinner. During the conversations that occurred, Christian mentioned that he was just running this marathon to cross October off his list (he's running one every month in 2015), so he didn't care about his finish time... so.. I took this opportunity to suggest that he could run with me if he wanted to. He asked what I was planning to run and I said "sub 3:30"... he said OK. So... it looked like I would have some company!

Dinner time!

After dinner and dessert, there was a bit more chatting and hanging out before heading to bed at a reasonable hour. There were races to run in the morning!

Marathon Morning: 

I got up 5:45ish, poured a cup of coffee and made myself some oatmeal. After eating my breakfast, I hopped in the shower quick, got ready, packed up my car, and then we all drove in a caravan of sorts to the start. My car was staying at the start but the other three cars were being taken to the finish. Pat's daughters (Hunter and Taylor) were running the half and had to be shuttled to the start line from the finish area, so Donna (Pat's wife), Taylor, and Hunter drove their two cars and Kyle's car to the finish. 

The start was at an arena, so there was a lot of space indoors for people to wait and plenty of washrooms. No getting cold standing around before the start... that was definitely nice.

 

 

Bag check was being done right next to the start line, which was also great because you could keep extra clothes on until the last minute. I had arm warmers on, but took them off just before I handed in my bag. Pat had handed out throw away gloves that morning, so I kept those on for the start of the race.

Race Time!
I got ready to line up and noticed a 3:30 pace bunny, so I said to Christian that the bunny is not allowed to pass me, and plopped myself just a little in front of him.

Air horn blew and we were off. I started slightly quick, but not horribly quick and I settled into the pace that I wanted to be in pretty soon after.

Christian didn't start right beside me, but he caught up to me just after the first turn and we ran together for pretty much the rest of the race. 

 

There was an aid station every 2k, which seemed to make the time FLY by. I kept thinking wow... there's another one already? and said things like "we're already at 16K?" It was a great feeling.

 

A Pit Stop..

What I was dreading before the race, happened. I had to make a pit stop. I was thinking about it for a bit and then decided to stop at the 20K aid station to use the port-a-potty. I was in and out in less than a minute, but saw an unfortunate sight when I started running again.... the 3:30 bunny was ahead of me! The pace group had passed me when I was in the john.... I started trying to catch them because I was supposed to be ahead of them! But... then realized what I was doing after a few minutes and thought about it logically. I was running on pace for what I wanted to do, which meant I was running slightly faster than that pace group, which also meant I would catch and pass them eventually. There was no need to try to catch them NOW. So.. I resisted the urge to chase. It was too early in the game.  

I did pass them eventually... it took about 10K to do so.

The rest of the race

Christian stopped a few times on the course to use port-a-potties and to say hi to his wife. This was mentally good for me since it mixed things up and I sort of had a little game of sorts... "how many km until he catches back up to me?" :)

So... the first time he stopped... it was 2km. The second time.. 3k... the final time was over 4. That was around mile 23 or 24... I don't remember exactly, but I know that it was when I decided to push. He mentioned to me after the race that I was pulling away from him up a hill, which was very nice to hear.

 

 

I was extremely focused for the last bit. Not that I lacked focus early on, but I pretty much had tunnel vision for the last 4km. I had a job to do and I was going to haul my ass to that finish line as best I could. 

As I had mentioned to a few people, I had a dream two nights before before the race where I was looking at the race results and my finish time was 3:28:00. My goal for this marathon was sub 3:30, so the time in my dream made sense... and on race day, I crossed the finish line and looked at the time... 3:27:57. My net time was 3:27:52; a new PR by almost four and a half minutes!

My previous best marathon was 3:32:19 at the Buffalo Marathon last year and prior to that, was 3:51:28 at my very first marathon in 2011 (Mississauga).

Back to this year... overall it was just great. The temperature was really good... the wind was a little strong and in a less than ideal direction, but the course was nice and there were more spectators than I expected.

I'm very happy with how I ran my race. I ran smart.

I ran the first half of the race in a little under 1:45 and the second half just under 1:43. It was my very first negative split and it felt good.

Race results can be found here.

My medal - it's in the shape of Prince Edward County

After the race, I enjoyed some Barley Days beer while chatting with some other runners and then watched the awards, where I won a pair of Altra shoes as a draw prize.

After the awards were done, Pat drove me back to my car in Wellington and I headed up to my sister's house to spend the rest of Sunday hanging out and drinking wine. Thanks Alison!

This was one of the best race weekends I've had in a while, since it was truly a race weekend away and not just a race that happened during a regular weekend at home. It was great to stay with runners the night before the race, (Thanks again Pat!) and it was nice to be able to extend my weekend into Monday and not have to drive straight back home on Sunday afternoon. I'm looking forward to having more weekends like this in the future.