Leaving it all out there - Ottawa Marathon 2015
Posted: Mon May 25, 2015 9:12 am
I don't always get a chance to post race reports but figured I would this time around!
Backstory...
My last marathon (my 4th) was in Ottawa in May 2012, when my daughter was 13 months. It was a great come-back race post-baby and I ran a PB of 3:49. I thought that the possibility of qualifying for Boston down the road was in my sights, but then they went and dropped the qualifying times by 5 minutes. Sub-335, rather than 3:40:59 just seemed so much further out of reach, that I put it out of my mind, thinking I would come around to that goal again when I'd aged up a bit.
Fast forward to May 2014 - birth of my second baby, and I decided I'd aim for the Ottawa Marathon again as my A goal. I contemplated heading to the GTA for potentially cooler temperatures, but I just love my hometown course so much, especially seeing friends, neighbours, colleagues etc on the course and cheering. Training this year went absolutely as well as it possibly could. My training partner was gunning for Boston (she needed a 3:45) and we followed the NYRR's program with the goal of getting her in around 3:43. It was tougher than anything either of us had done before - but we gradually adapted to the faster paces for our long runs, and with time 13 km on a random Tuesday or Wednesday no longer seemed like too big of a deal. Our winter here was tough - weeks with extreme cold warnings alternating with big dumps of snow, but my treadmill was my constant companion, and I was able to get out for all but one of my long runs, usually with my training partner for company. Once March came along with a break in the weather, it was out with the stroller I went, taking Felix along for tempo runs, easy runs and intervals - I ran over 500 km with either the single or double stroller, mostly just leaving them at home for my long runs and maybe one other run per week if I was lucky.
We scheduled 2 tune-up races - in March, we traveled to Hamilton for Around the Bay. I finished in 2:30 for the 30km, a five minute PB that felt almost easy. It was then that I began to think I might have a faster marathon in me. On Mother's Day, I ran 44:06 for a 10K and decided I was going to go for it...BQ or bust. I don't know when the training stars would line up again so well for me, so I figured I would go for broke and limp it in if I needed to, rather than going for a safer sure-bet PB. This was scary! It was a big goal for me, and I knew it was a long-shot. The first time I'd set something so daunting in front of me.
Race Day...
Reviewing previous Boston acceptance times, I was pretty sure that I needed not just sub 3:35, but more like 3:33 to be sure of a spot, so I decided to start with the 3:35 bunny to keep myself honest through the first 8 km or so (my downfall in 2012 were the super crowds through Hintonburg and Wellington!) and then try and stay between the two of them. The first 5 km or so were awful. I dropped a gel early on, I got two different diaphragm stitches and I just couldn't get in a groove. Thankfully, once I was a bit more warmed up, things started to click. I ran by my family around the 7 km mark, stopping for a lightening quick hug with Charlotte and carried along with the 335 bunny. Around the 10k mark, I noticed that he was banking a bit more time than I was comfortable, so I let myself relax back a little bit and let him get ahead by a couple hundred metres. I knew I needed to focus on my own race. I was surrounded by a few other young female runners, BQ hopefuls like myself (including one with a shirt reading "I just want a unicorn!") and we chatted a bit about the pacing. I went through the half way at around 1:46:20, right on 3:30 pace.
The first half of the race went by quickly, and the minor hills on the Gatineau side felt good. I was impressed by how much more crowd support there was there as compared to my last time at the full distance. My favourite was the guy who set up his drum kit in his front lawn and was just rocking out on drum solos. Not an official music station, but he was awesome! Back in Ottawa, we hit the Rockcliffe Parkway section - I had forgotten how hilly it was, how few spectators there were, and how sunny it could be - just as our nice cloud cover blew away. I caught back up to the 335 bunny at this point who was slowing down his pace and pulled away. However, around 31 km, I started to have to work for the pace - keeping myself focused to make the splits, but I was still hitting them.
Then it hit around the 37 km mark, I just started to fade. As we turned onto Sussex with its long uphill, the bunny caught me again and I just had nothing left to respond with. I seriously thought about sitting down and stopping, or walking. Some low thoughts entered my head, because I knew just how quickly the time could slip away here. But, I refocused, turned the pace screen off on my garmin, and just started pumping my arms harder and reciting some short mantras in my head to keep the legs turning over. The crowd support was amazing, but I was hurting too much to enjoy it. Around 38-39km, the half marathoners joined us, which was super demoralizing, as runners doing 1:35 were flying by me. Finally we passed the 42 km marker that I'd run under in training, and we were back on my home turf - the canal, where I did almost all of my training runs this year. My brain was too foggy to do marathon math, so I didn't know if I could squeak under or not. I was so happy to finally cross that finish line.
In the end, I came up short - 3:35:52. Not enough for a BQ, but still a 14 minute personal best, and far beyond a time I could have imagined three years ago after my last marathon, a year ago when I had a brand new baby, or even 5 months ago when we started training. Am I disappointed about missing that BQ? Sure. But do I have any regrets? Not in the slightest.
Backstory...
My last marathon (my 4th) was in Ottawa in May 2012, when my daughter was 13 months. It was a great come-back race post-baby and I ran a PB of 3:49. I thought that the possibility of qualifying for Boston down the road was in my sights, but then they went and dropped the qualifying times by 5 minutes. Sub-335, rather than 3:40:59 just seemed so much further out of reach, that I put it out of my mind, thinking I would come around to that goal again when I'd aged up a bit.
Fast forward to May 2014 - birth of my second baby, and I decided I'd aim for the Ottawa Marathon again as my A goal. I contemplated heading to the GTA for potentially cooler temperatures, but I just love my hometown course so much, especially seeing friends, neighbours, colleagues etc on the course and cheering. Training this year went absolutely as well as it possibly could. My training partner was gunning for Boston (she needed a 3:45) and we followed the NYRR's program with the goal of getting her in around 3:43. It was tougher than anything either of us had done before - but we gradually adapted to the faster paces for our long runs, and with time 13 km on a random Tuesday or Wednesday no longer seemed like too big of a deal. Our winter here was tough - weeks with extreme cold warnings alternating with big dumps of snow, but my treadmill was my constant companion, and I was able to get out for all but one of my long runs, usually with my training partner for company. Once March came along with a break in the weather, it was out with the stroller I went, taking Felix along for tempo runs, easy runs and intervals - I ran over 500 km with either the single or double stroller, mostly just leaving them at home for my long runs and maybe one other run per week if I was lucky.
We scheduled 2 tune-up races - in March, we traveled to Hamilton for Around the Bay. I finished in 2:30 for the 30km, a five minute PB that felt almost easy. It was then that I began to think I might have a faster marathon in me. On Mother's Day, I ran 44:06 for a 10K and decided I was going to go for it...BQ or bust. I don't know when the training stars would line up again so well for me, so I figured I would go for broke and limp it in if I needed to, rather than going for a safer sure-bet PB. This was scary! It was a big goal for me, and I knew it was a long-shot. The first time I'd set something so daunting in front of me.
Race Day...
Reviewing previous Boston acceptance times, I was pretty sure that I needed not just sub 3:35, but more like 3:33 to be sure of a spot, so I decided to start with the 3:35 bunny to keep myself honest through the first 8 km or so (my downfall in 2012 were the super crowds through Hintonburg and Wellington!) and then try and stay between the two of them. The first 5 km or so were awful. I dropped a gel early on, I got two different diaphragm stitches and I just couldn't get in a groove. Thankfully, once I was a bit more warmed up, things started to click. I ran by my family around the 7 km mark, stopping for a lightening quick hug with Charlotte and carried along with the 335 bunny. Around the 10k mark, I noticed that he was banking a bit more time than I was comfortable, so I let myself relax back a little bit and let him get ahead by a couple hundred metres. I knew I needed to focus on my own race. I was surrounded by a few other young female runners, BQ hopefuls like myself (including one with a shirt reading "I just want a unicorn!") and we chatted a bit about the pacing. I went through the half way at around 1:46:20, right on 3:30 pace.
The first half of the race went by quickly, and the minor hills on the Gatineau side felt good. I was impressed by how much more crowd support there was there as compared to my last time at the full distance. My favourite was the guy who set up his drum kit in his front lawn and was just rocking out on drum solos. Not an official music station, but he was awesome! Back in Ottawa, we hit the Rockcliffe Parkway section - I had forgotten how hilly it was, how few spectators there were, and how sunny it could be - just as our nice cloud cover blew away. I caught back up to the 335 bunny at this point who was slowing down his pace and pulled away. However, around 31 km, I started to have to work for the pace - keeping myself focused to make the splits, but I was still hitting them.
Then it hit around the 37 km mark, I just started to fade. As we turned onto Sussex with its long uphill, the bunny caught me again and I just had nothing left to respond with. I seriously thought about sitting down and stopping, or walking. Some low thoughts entered my head, because I knew just how quickly the time could slip away here. But, I refocused, turned the pace screen off on my garmin, and just started pumping my arms harder and reciting some short mantras in my head to keep the legs turning over. The crowd support was amazing, but I was hurting too much to enjoy it. Around 38-39km, the half marathoners joined us, which was super demoralizing, as runners doing 1:35 were flying by me. Finally we passed the 42 km marker that I'd run under in training, and we were back on my home turf - the canal, where I did almost all of my training runs this year. My brain was too foggy to do marathon math, so I didn't know if I could squeak under or not. I was so happy to finally cross that finish line.
In the end, I came up short - 3:35:52. Not enough for a BQ, but still a 14 minute personal best, and far beyond a time I could have imagined three years ago after my last marathon, a year ago when I had a brand new baby, or even 5 months ago when we started training. Am I disappointed about missing that BQ? Sure. But do I have any regrets? Not in the slightest.
