Vancouver Sun Run and Victoria Times Colonist
It is the peak of the spring running season in British Columbia at the moment and the last two weeks have heralded two of the major 10km races on the Calendar. Both these races are sponsored and promoted by the local newspapers and hence get a large turnout.
First was Vancouver’s Sun Run which tours the edge of Stanley Park, English Bay and Vancouver with 50,000 other runners and walkers. This course taunts a conservative pacing effort and negative splits with a downhill first km and two bridge crossings in the second half of the race.
After what I felt was a restrained first mile I looked at my watch and was at 5:07 mile pace, a lot faster than my plan of 5:25. The race then cuts along the bay and groups tend to form, unfortunately I couldn’t really find a defined pack and didn’t risk expending the energy to bridge to the large pack about 100m ahead.
After the halfway point I was a 17:20 and looking to accelerate off the top of the Burrard Street bridge. However in the second 5km I ended up focussing on trying to maintain a pace in the headwind that sprung up and maintain position. With no pack to speak of and still carrying the remnants of a cold this section was a bit of a slog, ended up going with a runner who was accelerating through and managed to pick up a couple positions in the last km over the Cambie street bridge.
End result 35:21 finishing 93rd overall. Not as fast as I would have liked by ran pretty strong and just lacked the speed that I was hoping for.
After recovering pretty quickly from Sun Run and having a good hit out at the Forerunners clinic midweek decided to do the” Newspaper double” and head over to Vancouver Island for the Times Colonist 10k a week later. With my season of triathlon racing approaching soon I decided to train through this one and still get my miles in on the bike in the couple days before.
Having ridden to Victoria from the ferry the night before and having done my normal Friday Night and Saturday Rides I came to the start line reasonably fresh considering I had clocked 200km on the bike in the previous 36 hours.
The main goal for this race was to start conservative and pace it well. So crossing the 1km mark in Beacon Hill Park right on 3:30 meant my goal was achieved! Only problem was had 9km of a race left and about 12000 behind me so still had to work . After maintaining my pace for the next couple km’s I settled into to a small group and looked to go with any small breaks. Doing this allowed me to gain a couple places coming into the 5km mark which I passed at 17:32.
The next couple of km’s weren’t great and lost a bit of ground on my pace and couldn’t hold the group I had caught at 5km. managed to hold the gap at around 15 seconds and worked to maintain this as we left the coast and the view of the Olympia mountains and headed up the hill and into downtown Victoria. With about 1km to go it was attack or be attacked and finished of with a 3:21 km grabbing about 3 places in the 400m for a final time of 35:46 and 48th Overall.
Week in review
In the space of 7 days had two good but not great races and definitely improved my pacing strategy over the week. To only run Times Colonist 26 seconds slower with no taper compared to the Sun Run was a good sign for the triathlon season to come. Having come off a cold and a March injury was happy to be running well even though did not PR in any of the races
Have been training and running in my Newton Trainers and Racer’s for the last 6 months now and my feet feel a lot less beat up than they did previously allowing me to focus on achieving the targets of my specific training sessions.
Next on the agenda is a couple months of training focussing on hitting training goals each week with a few “no taper” races thrown in to the mix before focusing on one of the Half Ironman Triathlon races on my schedule and the Scotiabank Half marathon.
2009 Thus Far
| Date | Race | Time | Overall Place | Division | Division Place |
| Jan 11th | Pioneer 8km | 27:52 (PR) | 34/630 | M25-29 | 10/28 |
| Jan 25th | Chilly Chase 10km | 34:51 (PR) | 3/169 | M20-29 | 3/9 |
| Feb 1st | Icebreaker 8km | 27:13 (PR) | 13/215 | M25-29 | 4/16 |
| Feb 8th | San Diegeto Half Marathon | 1:19:32 (PR) | 16/1302 | M25-29 | 3/85 |
| Mar 8th | Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8km | 28:11 | 21/973 | M25-29 | 7/74 |
| Mar 28th | Dave Reed Spring Classic 5km | 17:10 (PR) | 12/226 | M20-34 | 9/43 |
| Apr 19th | Vancouver Sun Run 10km | 35:21 | 93/42450 | M25-29 | 28/2606 |
| Apr 26th | Times Colonist 10km | 35:46 | 48/9932 | M25-29 | 12/463 |
Upcoming Schedule
| Date | Race |
| May 10th | Bare Bones Duathlon (Tentative) |
| May 24th | Shawnigan Lake Half iron Triathlon |
| June 7th | Persona Oliver Half Iron Triathlon |
| June 12th | North Shore Credit Union Longest Day 5km (Tentative) |
| June 14th | Edge to Edge Marathon Relay (Tentative) |
| June 21st | Victoria Half Iron or Sprint Triathlon (Tentative) |
| June 28th | Scotiabank Half Marathon |
| July 1st | Canada Day Open Water Swim (4km) |
| July 12th | Vancouver Half Iron Triathlon |
| Aug 30th | Ironman Canada Triathlon |
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