Mudbunnys Waste of Electrons

This is the final part of my blog series on running the Army Run half-marathon on September 23rd. Previous instalments can be found here (part 1), here (part 2), here (part 3) and here (part 4).

So the cannon went off, and I took off running.

Wait, that’s not right. The cannon went off, and I waited. You see, when you are about 200 metres back of the start line, in this completely massive herd of humanity, when the people in the front start, it takes a while for the people in the back to get a chance to move. A couple of minutes later, we started walking. It was hard, because the people in front of me would change speeds randomly. But, it only took a couple of minutes for the pace to even itself out.

I had paid for an elite subscription on Runkeeper.com so that i could have my position tracked for those people that couldn’t make it, which turned out to be everyone.

At the same time, I had programmed the Runkeeper app on my phone to have me do 10/1 intervals. 10 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. My goal was to finish between 2:45 and 3:00 for the 21 km, which is between 8:34 and 7:51 min/km. In the training runs I had done previously, I was able to keep this pace pretty easily and not be in much pain at all. I also threw myself in near the 2:45 run/walk pace bunny, to make sure.

While I had set a time for a goal, my overall goal was to simply finish the race and not be in too much pain at the end. To combat that, I had done a number of things. I had taped my knee up, I had a fair amount of presecription-strength anti-inflammatories coursing through my veins, and I also chewed up 3 extra strength aspirin (Mental note to self – Bring water next time. Chewing aspirins leaves a nasty aftertaste.)

The map above shows the course. It was nice. It wasn’t too hard, and the elevation differences were minimal, with only a total of 55 metres of elevation change from the lowest point in the race to the highest point in the race. The total distance I climbed was just a hair over 300 metres.

The organizers had aid stations set up every 3 or 4 kms, and porta-potties a bit more frequently. If you look at my pace, you can see the spike at about 3.8 kms. That was me stiopping to use a porta potty. Despite having gone 2 or 3 times before the race started, as soon as I got into the starting corrall, I had to go again. I managed to hold out until this point, but decided that I had better go anyways, to be on the safe side. I can’t lie, it was rather satisfying.

For the first 3 or 4 sets of run/walk, I managed to keep to my plan. I didn’t feel the need to walk, but I did anyways, to make sure that my knee was doing OK. Then, somewhere around the 7km mark, I made a decision. “Fuck it. If my knee hurts, it hurts. It will go away in time.” So I threw out my training plan and decided to run as far as I could without stopping to walk except for aid stations.

As I mentioned, the aid stations are set up about 3 or 4 kms apart. They were a series of table with volunteers handing out water and/or Gatorade. I would always walk through each station, and take two glasses to drink, one or water and one of Gatorade. I was able to keep up thjis pace up until around the 12km mark. This was a relatively small uphill, but it was after the part of the race with the largest differences in elevations. It went down fairly rapidly, and then a even steeper climb, and another short decline. Overall, this was just too much for my knee. It started hurting like a son of a bitch and I had to walk for awhile. Looking back, it was only about a 5 minute walking portion, but at the time, it felt a whole lot longer.

I ended up having to walk once more (at about 16 kms) if what I see on Runkeeper is accurate. The third spike in my slowing down, at about 15 kms in, is me tweeting that I am feeling pretty good and am happy. By this time, my knee is at a constant level of soreness. Not pain, just a soreness and a mild ache that I can ignore with no real effort at all.

The last 4 kms I did with no real effort. I was feeling really good, and was coming across a lot of people cheering for me. You would be amazed at how good it made me feel and how much it re-energized me to run by them.

The last 2 kms, I knew the end was near, and so I upped my pace. My knee was feeling good, and I was going to push as hard as I could up until the end. With more experience, I think that I could have started running faster about a km or two earlier. I still had some left in the bank at the end of my race.

I collected my medal, and went and had my official picture taken.

I took another anti-inflammatory that night, and iced down my knee over supper. Put some Voltaren emu-gel on it just before bed, and it was fine the next day. A bit sore, but no pain.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found here (part 1), here (part 2) and here (part 3).

The night before the race, I was a bit nervous. I got some great advice from my brother (hydrate lots the night before, run at your pace, not anybody elses) and Lisa van Loon (go to the bathroom when you get there, and get back in line again once you are done the first time.) Lisa has run half marathons aplenty, and my brother is also way more physically active than I am, so I took their advice to heart.

I drank lots of water and got all of my gear ready, including shaving and then taping up my knee, , all the while obsessively checking the weather forecast for the next day on my iPhone. Over the course of the evening, the forecast got progressively better-looking from me. From a 40% chance of rain at the beginning of the day to a 10% chance of precipitation just as I was going to sleep.

I woke up the next morning at about 6:30 or 7am, and looked outside to get an idea of what my race would be like today, and was greeted by this:

How happy was I at this! And as a bonus, they announced the temperature to be between 9 and 13 celcius. I was a happy, happy camper. Especially since most of my training had been done in the evenings, around 10pm, so this was the temperature that I was used to. As an added benefit, I would actually be able to see the road!!

While eating breakfast, I got a bit of bad news. My race partner had come down with a case of the sicks, and wouldn’t be going. Unfortunate, but shit happens sometimes. The wife and kids woke up and dropped me off downtown Ottawa, where it was a short walk to the race site. While crossing the bridge to get to the race site, I noticed that the 5km race had started.

Once there, I saw that it was pretty busy, and I immediately got in the most important line I would be in today.

There were a surprisingly large number of porta-potties available. So I did not need to go from the porta-potty directly back into line. I was able to go and stretch a bit before I got back in line.

While stretching, I looked at everyone around there and, for a while, I couldn’t help but feel like an imposter…an outsider. Like I really didn’t belong, and everyone else knew it. Part of my personality I suppose. While stretching, I was tuned out of everything else, but one of the professional photographers from Zoom Photo got this amazing shot from a reverse angle. By the shadows, I am guessing that it was taken at about 7:30ish.

Eventually, I noticed that it was getting close to the start time of the race, and I made my way to my corral (purple). I was expecting to finish at around 2:45-3 hours, due to my knee, so I threw myself near the 2:45 run/walk bunny. This is my viewpoint from that location:

One of the best parts of this race is the close ties it has with the military. The race supports a couple of awesome charities (Soldier On and the Military Families Fund) that are close to my heart, coming from a military family. A bonus of that is that they use a 105 mm Howitzer in place of the starter’s pistol.

(UBIQUE!!)

(to be continued)