It was a glorious day for my third annual Sporting Life 10K. Despite going to bed early the night before and waking up to what was the warmest day yet of 2014, I felt lethargic. It was not the attitude I needed to attain that much coveted sub-50 time I’ve been chasing all season.
I pretty much knew as soon as I crossed the start line that a PB was out of the question. I hadn’t done one single speed workout since The Toronto Yonge Street 10K. How on earth did I expect to have gotten faster in the last 4 weeks? Magic? No. There was no magic in my run on Sunday. I crossed the line at 53: 49 – a far cry from a PB and more than 2 minutes slower than my Toronto Yonge Street time of 51:09.
I’m a tad disappointed, but not surprised. I didn’t train to be fast. I’ve focused my efforts on leading a 10K training clinic at The Running Room. Over the last 4 weeks, I have really put my own goals aside to focus on leading and inspiring my group. To think I was going to attain a PB was a bit ridiculous.
So once I came to terms with this fact – about 1K into the race – I just ran at a pace that was comfortably hard and frankly, I enjoyed myself. I looked at the other runners and wondered about their stories. I thought about all my friends running, especially Danielle, Dee and their sister Alanna who was running her first 10K. I watched 27,000 runners on Yonge Street and felt generally happy and thankful. I thought about silly things like, “Who cares if I’m not fast. At least I have legs!” Or, “At least I don’t have the flu like last year.”
Around the 8K, my husband Graham suddenly appeared beside me. Apparently he had been trailing me the whole race. I wore bright pink – not this year’s teal race shirt – so I was easy to spot in a crowd. After about 500 meters, he sped away and I couldn’t catch him! Fueled by a competitive drive, I felt a renewed sense of strength so I pushed ahead. I STILL couldn’t catch him. He crossed the line 15 seconds ahead of me at 53:34 and I was very proud of him! Unlike me, he’s actually been training the last couple weeks and it paid off. Congrats Graham!
After the race, we met up with several friends who also ran. We ate some bagels and bananas, took some photos and chatted about the race. Then we headed to a patio for brunch, where I promptly got my first sunburn of the year. No one really talked about their times which was nice. We just enjoyed the fact that everyone finished… and the fact that we could all feel justified in a post-run beer or Caesar and some greasy food.
I’ll get that PB one day. ‘Til next year…
