November was a lighter running month than I'd intended, the weather dawned crummy, and there was a bigger field this year (625, I believe, compared to last year's 400), so between all those factors I was just going into it as a fun day and not with any particular ambitions. Leading up to the start, it was steadily raining, with a wind off Lake Ontario that made it feel a good bit colder than the 8C the weather channel indicated. I nearly second-guessed my clothing choice (tights, short sleeves and arm warmers) when I saw the majority of other runners with jackets and toques, but once things started my choice was ideal.
The course is an out-and-back along the lake, using bike paths and then some road along the Leslie Street Spit. Between the numbers of people, some mega puddles, and difficulty seeding at the start (my one quibble with the setup today - last year they had volunteers with signs to help people know where to seed themselves at the start; didn't see them today), it was predictably crowded in the first 2km or so, with lots of unpredictable dodging and weaving thanks to the aforementioned puddles. I was relieved to gain a bit of breathing room after about the 2k mark, and from then on there was plenty of space.
This race attracts some seriously fast runners, and it was exciting to see the leaders come back past when I was at about 3.5k. (Both men's and women's course records were broken today - the male winner was done in 31:xx!) Around the same point, I fell in close to a guy who was going at a nice pace, and kind of used him as a pace bunny, pretty much for the rest of the race. He really helped spur me on, since any time his pace slacked off and I made a move to pull ahead, he would step on the gas again; it kept my pace sharp and I assume the benefit was probably mutual. (He had headphones firmly in place and didn't seem interested in communicating, so just a guess here).
Another thing that spurred me on was that a colleague of mine was running as well, and I kind of had it in mind that if I had a really good day I could maybe beat her. I didn't see any sign of her till I heard my name just after 5k and saw her heading toward the turnaround I'd just passed - so I was ahead, but not by much. That kept me motivated for the return leg. One thing I quite like about this course is that you can see the big red start/finish arch in the distance from about the 9k mark, so it was conducive to stepping up the pace further for a lengthy finish kick. I never did pass my anonymous "pacer", but stayed hot on his heels and finished 2 seconds behind him.
And the exciting bit: thanks to the motivation in the second half, I ran a negative split (haven't checked exactly, but about a minute) and finished in 56:57 chip time for a new PR!
In the interest of full disclosure, my Garmin showed the course as just a hair short (9.95km), but I'm willing to chalk that up to Garmin error and enjoy the result. (I admit, I did do the rough math in my head as well, and figured out that if I had added another 50 meters on I still would have had a PR, albeit by a narrower margin)I'd be curious to know what distance other people got on GPS for the course, but overall it was a fun event and I would happily go back again next year.
Don't sweat about 50m. 50m between friends is nothing. when the course is short by 400m, then there's an issue 
