As always, the Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8K is the first race of the season for me, and I’ve done next to no running over the winter months. I did go out and run 8k last weekend in preparation, but I was still woefully underprepared for this challenging race, which ends with a steep 300m hill. Yesterday, it poured rain all day and all night, and there was rain forecast for this morning, but luckily it held off. But it was COLD, about 3° Celsius, and with very high gusting winds that made it feel more like -4°. Unfortunately for me, that meant I had to run in long pants with a rain jacket. I absolutely HATE running with all that gear on; I always feel completely weighed down and sluggish, and that was the case today. I ran at roughly a 5:40 pace for the first 5 or 6 kilometres, which wasn’t horrible (except I wanted to be running at least a 5:30 pace), but around 6k, I developed a nasty stitch in my right side that didn’t go away and caused me to stop and try to walk it off several times.
So, I was pretty disappointed overall with my run. Brooke also had a sub-par year, finishing about a minute after me. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I actually improved on last year’s time. Not that 2008 was such a great race for me, either, but I suppose I can take some small comfort from the slight improvement.
Next month, we’ll be running the Sporting Life 10K again, and I hope to do much better. My goal is to run sub-54:00. That’s not very fast, but it will be a (hopefully) reasonable challenge for me.
Gun Time: 48:20.3
Chip Time: 47:29.3
Overall Place: 1060/2016
Gender Place: 703/1043
Age Group (M40-44) Place: 100/140
2008 Chip Time: 47:43.6
2007 Chip Time: 45:23.7
2006 Chip Time: 44:16.8
2005 Chip Time: 42:38.3
2004 Chip Time: 43:26.5