Mercedes-Benz 10K

Oakville ON

BIB # 2607

Chip Time 54:08:5 (Kyle 53:56)

Official Time 55:38:4

Pace 5:25

Place 362/954

Gender Place 124/507

Category Place 40/171

 

 Here we are again. Another 10K race on my birthday weekend. Do I know how to celebrate or what?! Last year I ran the Yonge St 10K, this year it was the Mercedes 10K. With my marathon 2 weeks away, racing this event would not be a smart idea. What would be a smart idea would be asking my son Kyle to run it with me. At the beginning of the year Kyle had shown interest in running a half marathon. I told him that he could do a 10K and see how he felt after that. There were two 10K's being held on my birthday, Yonge St & Mercedes and if he would like to run with me he could choose which one. Purely for the medal Kyle selected Mercedes. That's my boy. All about the swag. Last week I asked Kyle if he'd been training at all. The answer was no but apparently he got a 12 on the beep test at school, so according to him he's pretty much elite status and doesn't need to train. Seventeen year olds. Gotta love 'em. Oh well. He kicked my ass with no training for the Santa 5K, he's at such a level of youth and fitness he'll probably kick my butt here as well.

 

Race morning arrived and much like last year it was chilly. Thankfully it wasn't damp though and the sun was shining. We arrived to the race with about 15 minutes to spare. Just enough time for us to hit the porta potty line up. After covering the toilet seat with paper, Kyle officially became a runner. With 5 minutes left to the scheduled start time we made our way over to the corrals. Truly, I should have looked around and noticed that we were WAY too far back. We honestly spent the ENTIRE race passing people. As soon as the gun went off I realized my mistake in where I had placed us, and even Kyle was getting frustrated with the speed that the people ahead of us were moving. We bobbed and weaved around people the best that we could and finally after getting yelled at by an old guy for obviously being in the wrong corral I grabbed Kyle and we ran up onto the sidewalk. Soon after the verbal assault by grandad we passed the first KM marker and then the second. Kyle had his headphones in (do teenagers ever take these things out?!?) so I'm not really sure if he was listening to me chattering away but I didn't care. There's something to be said for running a race for fun! We came across a water table and stopped for Kyle to have a drink and then got back at it. There was a slight downhill after this which I told him to ride for momentum. Then after that there was an amazing downhill that I just had fun with and rode all the way down not even checking to see if my boy was with me. I slowed up and let him catch me and then realized what goes down must come up. I honestly never took into consideration that there may be hills on this course. After training with Patty for so long her words started to come out of my mouth. "Even effort. Let the hill come up to meet you". Kyle was definitely listening to me now because he responded with a "Yes, Sensei" He did listen to my words though because as the weaker runners that we were around started walking this hill, he ran all the way up it. Atta boy! Even one of the volunteers cheered him on for it. After we reached the 5K point I kept asking how he was doing and he kept saying fine. I was afraid that he might run out of gas but that never seemed to be the case. We stopped once for him to tie his shoes and then walked another water table and then that was it. There was a fire in this kids belly to get this race done. We passed the final water table and he didn't want to stop there. Around 8K I noticed that his shoe was untied again and I told him to pull off and tie it up. Nope. It's fine. I think telling him that if he kept the pace up that he would definitely get a sub one hour finish gave him some encouragement. The runners around us now were beginning to die a slow and painful death and Kyle was just getting started. The 5Kers joined the course adding to the congestion but he kept going, weaving around everyone in his way. His pace really began to pick up and around 9K he got ahead of me. Pushing it at this point was pointless so I just kept him in my sights and kept my pace. I did notice that he never once looked back to see where I was. Brat! I was still passing people and to be perfectly honest other than the times that we slowed for water and to tie Kyle's shoes no one ever passed us. As Kyle turned onto the driveway I lost sight of him so I just picked people off that were ahead of me. Now I turned into the driveway toward the finish and put on my final push. I heard my parents call my name and waved to them and then it was all over. My birthday 10K race for fun was finished for another year and it was great. I'm so proud of Kyle for finishing this 10K race at an even faster pace than at the Santa 5K, even with two water station stops and to tie his shoes. Whether or not he decides to do a half marathon remains to be seen but I do know one thing. If this kid actually decides to train he could be amazing. Way to go babe!

 

SPLITS - Why yes, we did negative split this baby!

5:39 CONGESTION!!!

5:19

5:38 WATER TABLE

5:54 TYING SHOES

5:25 (5K split 27:55)

5:41 WATER TABLE

5:30

5:12

5:06

4:36 FOR ME 4:24 FOR KYLE

 

Boo disappointed in the race photos. Super small and not many at all.