Through Rain, Sleet, or Snow – 2009 Icebreaker 8km (Steveston, BC, Canada)

13^th Overall, 4^th 25-29 Age Group, 27:13 (New PB by 39 Seconds)

February 1^st was the Icebreaker 8km, event no. 2 of the TIMEX Series put on by BC Athletics and the race is sponsored by Forerunners. This was also an exciting race as it was my first official race since becoming supported by Forerunners and Newton for the 2009 season.

Gun goes and off begins my second foray at this distance into the rain a fog that lay on the course ahead. My debut at 8km 3 weeks prior had been a painful one as struggled to hold tempo after a quick start, so the aim today was to settle into the race and pick up the tempo.

After the first 2km’s of square dancing among the top15 or so I settled in to setting the tempo for the third pack.

Like a little kid on a road trip I was thinking how much further as we ran towards the turn around point. Not having started the watch at the start (user error) my gut felt was that I was running a slow split and may struggle to beat my PB from 3 weeks prior.

Turn around mark then appeared and split in about 13:35 which was ahead of schedule. As the rain thickened (literally) began the run back and chase for those dropping of the pace in the second group.

Our chase group expanded as we picked up a runner dropping back and another coming from behind. Pretty much at this point the next gap created was going to be the one for our race within a race and with 1500m to go I hung on to the next move and found myself head to head with a 20m gap to close for the last km.

Sleet started to come down at this stage and managed make the pass with 400m to go before putting my head down and not looking back as I tried to steal anther place in the last 100m or so. This did not happen but I did get a PB for the distance and my split was nearly equal which an improvement is over the first two races of 2009.

So through rain and sleet (Snow was saved for drive home) managed to finish 13^th with a new PB of 27:13 which broke my previous best time for the distance by 39 seconds.

Back of the Envelope Notes

Wore a fresh pair of the Newton Distance Racer's which is what I have been wearing in for since I bought my first a pair of Newton’s in September 2008. This now makes 5 PB’s wearing Newton’s over the last 5 months. .

Thanks to Forerunners for sponsoring this race and for their support and advice over the past year. My equivalent 10km time has dropped approximately 15% over this period with my last 5 road races having brought PB’s. A large part of this must be the quality of their staff and with 3 sub 2:20 marathoners to ask for advice it must be one of the most knowledgeable (and quickest!!!) running stores in North America.