Mississauga Marathon

Mississauga ON

BIB # 370

Chip Time 4:10:25

Official Time 4:11:55

Pace 5:57

Place 454/851

Gender Place 152/352

Category Place 55/132

 

 

I've officially entered a new status as a runner.......marathoner. How exciting! Too bad no one gives a crap but me and my running friends but that's ok. It's still something I can brag about even if the person that I am telling is internally rolling their eyes. And I'm gonna stick a 42.2 decal on my car too! Take that non-runners!

 

On Friday I headed over to the expo and picked up my & Patty's race kits. I also ran into Sarah which was a nice surprise. I haven't seen her since ATB in March. I didn't really pick up a whole lot at the expo because I wasn't all that into it. I did however sign up for the Midsummer Night's Run 15K in August. I've sworn that I won't do the 30K there again and I'm happy to stick with that choice. I still get all of the goodies without having to expire on the nighttime race course. Win!

 

Sunday I awoke to my two alarms, a text from Patty and a bunch of Facebook messages asking if I was awake. I sure hope someone has a race fail soon and takes over being the butt of the race day jokes! LOL My inability to properly set my race day alarm and poor prerace fueling choices are becoming legendary. Maybe I need to channel my inner Usain Bolt so that I can become a legendary runner in a different way. Yeah, I'm pretty much stuck with my nacho fame. Oh well.

 

Emma, Patty & Amy came and picked me up shortly before 6am and we headed out to Square One where we hooked up with a group of Daily Milers.

Robin, Nicole, Laurie, Patty, Amy, Me, Richard, Emma, Alan, Roxanne & Henry. The others are Laurie's friends.

 

Phil was supposed to run with us but we were unable to find him amongst the mass of marathon & half marathon runners. I guess he must have gotten there late? His loss for missing out on our titillating race conversation. "Oh I like that girls skirt". "Ew, look at that girls butt in those striped crops." "Holy crap, buddy must be hot in all those clothes." Yes, we pretty much critiqued every one's outfit so be warned next time you decide to wear man shorts to a race, ladies. Of course we received lots of compliments on our outfits. As Hal Higdon says "Color coordination is the key. It doesn't matter how fast you run. More important is how good you look doing it." The best lesson that Patty has taught me! LOL

 

We headed out into the corral and placed ourselves a little behind the 4:15 pace bunny. This was a run/walk bunny so not someone that we would be able to use but figured we should start around him any way. The announcer did the usual spiel and had a moment of silence for Boston as well. Shortly after this the gun went off and so did we. We were able to stick to our paces really well in the first stretch, having to dodge people but not really all that many. We chatted like usual and the time flew by quickly. The first 10K were pretty uneventful other than us passing the 4:15 pacer. Just gotta keep that guy behind us!

SPLITS 5:48 5:55 5:50 5:37 5:39 5:46 5:37 5:44 5:33 5:41

 

Around the 10K mark we were running close to the 2:00 half pace bunny. I'd love to know how she did because at the rate she was going she was not going to bring those people in on time unless her goal was to negative split which probably isn't what a pace bunny is supposed to do? The worst was hearing her say 'We're halfway there'. Really? I'm a quarter of the way there. Not fair! Thankfully the split came up soon after this and we didn't have to listen to the cheerful half marathoners who only had another 6k to go. Right at the split we saw Paul out cheering on his running peeps. Originally he was supposed to have been a pacer at the race but had to drop out due to injury. We gave a wave and made the turn. I was a little worried about making the split because I've always heard that the full course can get a little lonely and there are times when you won't see another runner. Thankfully this never happened to us. There were always people around which was nice. Once again this 10K was uneventful other than it started to get pretty hot and I was beginning to get a headache. I had to loosen the strap on my hat and try to keep myself hydrated or else things could get ugly.

SPLITS 6:01 5:47 5:51 5:49 5:50 5:53 5:58 5:54 6:00 5:54

 

The following 10K started to get interesting. We were still feeling good but the sun was really beginning to beat down. There was an out and back portion along Southdown Rd and Lakeshore and we amused ourselves with trying to find people that we knew in the group that was on the back half as we were on the out portion. Guess who we saw? Phil! "Hey" he yelled. "What are you doing?!?!" I yelled back. He was pretty far ahead of us so there was no way that we would be able to catch him. Oh well, his loss. Again. He was missing out hearing about Patty's SIL's wedding and my troubles with National Home Services. BTW, DO NOT switch water heater companies to them. The worst! We made our way out to the turn around and then headed back into a park section which was new to us as it wasn't on the map that Nicole gave us when we did our training run out here. I had been watching a corner cutter for the last little while and when I pointed him out to Patty cutting yet another corner she yelled out to him "Hey, douche bag!". We then made jokes about how he should take the bus to the finish line and pour some water on himself to make it look like sweat. Around 27K Patty had to take a bathroom stop so I walk/jogged along a little bit waiting for her. To be honest I was starting to get tired so the break was welcomed. She quickly caught back up and we made our way back to Southdown Rd where the sun was insane! I was so hot and starting to feel lethargic and my head was feeling like it was pulsating. "We're not acclimated to this heat". Patty said. No doubt, with this horrible spring we've had. Boo Mother Nature! Around 29K we saw Paul again which was a nice surprise.

Paul took this picture and posted it to FB where I immediately stole it.

 

"Just get me to 30K" I said. "I need to get out of the 20s". "That's where the fun begins" Patty said to me. How right she was......

SPLITS 5:46 5:50 5:58 5:54 6:05 5:52 5:55 6:27 6:07 5:53

 

Just past 30K is where the rollers began. I didn't realize that I had signed up for Around The Bay again! EEK! The ones in the residential area were the worst for me and I actually had to walk up one. "Just go ahead, I'll catch up" I said to Patty. I was tired and hot and mentally starting to break down. Just as I caught up to her another hill came. As we got to the top of it a man on a bike road by and said to us "Good job girls. You've got a lot more hills ahead of you". DUDE! Really? Is that what you think that I need to hear right now? Get lost! We made our way out onto Lakeshore and began tackling those hills. I was so tired at this point I couldn't even keep up my end of the conversation but with the help of a water station walk break and gel I got through it. By this point I had taken 5 gels (I had one at the start) and my belly was not feeling good. I try to take as few gels as possible because they are pretty hard on my stomach but I really needed the energy to get through this. By the time that we got to Jack Darling park I was done. "It's taking everything in me not to walk right now" I said to Patty. "Do you think I don't know that?!?!" she yelled back to me. All around me people were walking so I stopped and walked about 10 steps. "Don't start walking now! You have to keep running!" Patty said to me. I stopped and walked about 5 steps again and that was it. I realized that she was right. If I began walking I may as well pack it in so I gathered up my wherewithal and ran. I had one last moment to let myself wonder just what the hell I was doing out here and then that was it. I started my countdown. 5 more miles. 7 more km. 6 more km. We grabbed water from a water station and I dumped two cups down my back which made me feel a lot better. When we got to JC Saddington park there were people walking everywhere. "We are going to march over these Death Marchers!" Patty said to me. Ok! With my head down so that I couldn't see them (monkey see monkey do) I marched right past those people who were walking. Shortly after this we saw a photographer. I have no idea where the hell we pulled out smiles from but we were faking it like champs!

Weeee look at us having a great time! I'll probably buy this picture. Maybe one day I won't remember how much this part sucked.

 

I was now in familiar territory and still had my inner countdown going. "4K! Easy! Even Greg can run 4K!" Patty said to me. 2 miles. 2k. 1 MORE MILE! We gutted it out and made our way to Lakefront Promenade Park where Patty started to suffer from a calf cramp. I asked her if she wanted to stop and rub it out but she said no. Tough as nails! "I'll be able to turn it up for the chute but I've got nothing left to give this last km" I said to Patty as we came out of the forest into the park. "It's ok." she said "we're gonna beat our time no matter what". Up ahead I saw a familiar back. "PHIL!" I yelled. "Come on" Patty said to Phil "Let's finish together!". Phil said that he had gotten a bad stomach cramp but he was going to gut it out with us. The three of us made our way down the home stretch and crossed the finish line! Big sweaty hugs all around! Yay us!

SPLITS 6:09 5:56 6:02 5:51 6:28 5:53 6:05 5:58 6:15 6:11 6:05 5:55

 

Get. Me. To. The. Finish!

Yeah we just ran 4 hours. No big deal. What do you mean we have to walk 2k to the shuttle buses?

 

 

So there you have it. I'm offically a marathoner. Will I run another one? Yes. Do I like it more than the half? No. The half is the distance that I love so I'm up in the air as to when I will run another. I'll either focus on bettering my half time in the fall or gut it out and do Scotia by myself. 42.2km is a long way to run on your own though.....