** a bit delayed as I wrote this almost 2 weeks ago now! But here it is***
Almost as soon as I
crossed the finish line at the BC XC Championships, I started debating racing
the James Cunningham Seawall Race (5.9 mile/9.5km) race the following morning.
For the last week I had been debating back and forth whether or not to race one
or both races. I left home on Saturday morning with enough clothing for 2 days
and had a tentative plan to stay at my sisters in Kits Beach if need be. By the
time I got off the ferry, I had decided to race XC and go home to my own bed.
When I arrived at the XC course in the pouring rain, I was still on course to
go home post race.
But as soon as I
crossed the line and was not happy with my race, my mind started going back and
forth as to whether or not I wanted to race again. Probably not the ideal time to
decide seen as how if one race didn’t feel quite right, chances are a second
race less than 24 hours after likely wouldn’t feel quite right either. In the
end, it was a Saucony sponsored race and I decided to hang around knowing that
it would be nice to catch up with a few of my competitors.
So I began a long
drive to pick up keys to my sisters from her friend as my sister was in Hawaii
until the following morning. Missing my turn after getting the keys, led me to
finding a Superstore by accident so I picked up some groceries for dinner and
breakfast the next morning before heading back to my sisters.
I spent the night
there and after a quick hello and goodbye shortly after they arrived home about
8:15am, I was on my way to Stanley Park. When I did my warm up, I was thinking
that maybe I made the wrong decision; however, I knew racing back to back was
going to be hard so my goal was just to get in a hard workout.
I caught up with
Catherine Watkins, Catrin Jones and Melissa Ross before the start. It was also
nice to see Helen Ritchie and fellow Saucony athlete Kristina Rody.
Start line photos!
The race
went out fast and I saw a young girl dart out to the lead. I think she was lead
female for the first km, but then slowly one by one we passed her. Catrin took
the lead and kept it to the end. Mel followed behind slowly pulling away from
me as my legs just would NOT go any faster. I kept 3rd spot until
the half way mark when Catherine ended up passing me. I was quite surprised as
this was her first official race back from injury, but it was great to see!
Fighting through the fatigue (aka finding my strong)
From there I realized
I was now in 4th and money went to the top 3 (darn), but I kept
plugging along and watched ahead as Catherine slowly reeled in Mel as well and
finished 2nd for her debut back! I slowly was reeling Mel near the
end, but I definitely did not have enough “oomph” in my stride to catch her,
which resulted in her being 3rd and me 4th in 35:44 (1:03
back from Catrin).
Finishing
Overall it was a good effort. Of course I would have liked
to have run faster, but running the first race at 2:30pm on Saturday and then
the 2nd race at 10am on Sunday meant I had tired legs! I did what I
wanted to do, which was a hard effort on tired legs, but at the same time I
missed part of my goal which was hoping finishing in a money spot.
I hung around for the
awards before heading back for the 3pm ferry! Overall it was a good weekend. Results found here.
Post Race
All photo credit goes to Rob Sombilon!
1 comment:
Hey, congrats. See you next week! - M
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