Race Triumphs and Bloopers

Photo on Left: Me before the race (I’m dry and all smiles) and Photo on Right: Me and my boys after the race (I’m soaked, shivering but very proud and smiling on the inside). Check out the cool running shirt…I’ll be wearing this one with pride until the stitching falls apart!!

As race day approached, my excitement grew about being part of the Nike+ 10km Human Race. Since this was my first race and being a total keener I wanted to be completely prepared. A few days before the race I got the race map and drove the route so then I’d know where I was going before the race began. Did I mention the race was in the dark and that I’m basically night blind? No joke… blind as a bat!

The day before the race, I started carb loading (which is always fun). I could barely contain myself when I showed up to pick up my awesome race shirt and swag bag! The second I got home, I threw on my race gear and started prancing around the house… but unfortunately I still had 24 hours until the race time!

I woke up early on race day and wished the day away so then I could run in the race already. The weather was disgusting, it had been raining on and off all afternoon and now it was cold, wet and dark outside, but this didn’t dampen my spirits. 10 minutes before the race was to begin, I arrived at the Running Room. The store was a complete buzz, you could feel the positive energy as you walked through the door and heard racers anxiously chatting and joking around with their friends in anticipation of the run. There was a DJ playing some of favorite running music (Black Eyed Peas) and it was a great way to kick-start to the event.

I had offers to run the race with friends, but chose to run it alone. I really wanted my first race to be all about me and the pace that my body could go without the pressure of having others to run with who may either slow me down or push me too hard. This race was also very important to mark an end of an era of my old life and starting a new one (on so many levels even beyond exercise). It was minutes before the race, I stood by myself, got my watch ready to track my 10:1 intervals, set my iPod to the music mix I created especially for this run… and then patiently waited for instructions.

I looked around and I was surrounded by hardcore runners. We all looked the same in our red race shirts and that’s when I realized… wow I’m just like these people… I’m a serious runner… I’m a competitor… and I won’t be coming in last!!! I’m no longer that overweight, out-of-shape obese person that I was a year ago. No one here would ever guess the transformation that I’ve had endure just to become “one of them”. I felt proud that I could blend into this athletic crowd and that I “looked” like I should be in the race. Not only did I “look the part”, but with the number of kilometres I’ve traveled in my sneakers over the last 14 months… I deserve to be part of this race.

I found out shortly before the race began that the start line had moved a couple blocks away from where it had originally planned to be… I thought that was weird but I didn’t think much more of it (which you will later learn is my first mistake of the night)… The large crowd moved outdoors to the start line (about a block away). I turned on my fancy smancy GPS watch so it could find the satellites and start measuring my distance by the time we started running. I figured the GPS would be helpful when I got tired and needed encouragement that I didn’t have much further to go!

The horn went off (wait shouldn’t it be a gun to start a race?) and the runners clapped, cheered and started moving in a forward momentum together. I couldn’t see my family from my initial vantage point, but as I moved forward along the street I heard two little voices yelling “Go Mom Go”. I couldn’t be more proud when I cast a quick glimpse of my two little guys, I veered over through the crowd to the sidewalk where they were standing so I could run by them and wave. I could see the excitement in their eyes when they spotted me and it definitely got the race off on the right foot! They proudly cheered me on with the signs they made and I was smiling from ear-to-ear that my family was here to see me run my first race.

Then all of a sudden my GPS watch (aka the bain of my existence – because I still haven’t read the manual) turned itself into compass mode… I never know how to get it out of this mode so I quickly decided to turn the GPS off… I don’t need the frustration of tinkering with this watch because I had some serious running to do!

It felt amazing to easily keep up with these other runners (and felt even better to pass a lot of them too). As we took our first corner I said to myself… wait a minute… why are we running in the wrong direction? The map I had said we start heading North and finish on the South end of the city… so why are we all running South? Did the course change? Oh no!!!! I looked around and everyone was heading “in the wrong direction”, so like a sheep I followed the heard. After a couple streets I realized we were running the course I had driven the day before, but just in the opposite direction. I have a good internal navigation system so I calmed down and just said oh well, we’ll run it in reverse order of what was planned… no big deal!

The mist started to turn to rain and my glasses were completely covered in water and getting steamed up from my breath. I decided to take them off probably about 1/2 kilometre into the race and I had no choice but to hold them in my hand the rest of the run. I cannot legally drive without my glasses, so imagine me running in the dark when it’s raining, on poorly lit, uneven sidewalks that are littered with leaves. It was a challenge to say the least, but for some reason I still had a silly grin across my face the entire time!

I had planned to run 10:1 the entire race, but like most things in life often times you just need to “go with the flow”. I knew my 10 minute run was up, but I just didn’t want to stop for the recovery walk. I saw others doing it but I enjoyed passing them too much and staying with the large group who weren’t taking breaks… but at about 25 minutes into the run… I decided it was time to do a recovery walk. The next 15 minutes of running was torture, so I decided to just run 5:1 to help get through this tough part.

Something happened when I hit about the 7km mark… it was like I became a robot. The rain started to come down and I just had this liberating feeling go through me that I cannot even explain (might have been the fact that one of my new favorite running songs Empire State of Mind was playing at the time… who knows(. But all of a sudden I decided to run the rest of the race without stopping and that I could do this with ease. My legs just kept moving forward and taking longer strides and it felt effortless!!! I don’t even remember hearing myself being out of breath. It was euphoric! At this point I was completely soaked from the rain. I had given up trying to avoid puddles that were sometimes deep enough you could kayak thru, instead I just forged ahead and enjoyed the soakers! My feet were raisins but I was enjoying myself, especially the solitude I felt during this run! I realized during this race, that I’m proud of myself for always being able to do things on my own and not needing anyone to push me to achieve physical goals anymore. It became clear to me why I resisted running this race with anyone… I wanted to experience this race alone… because it was a celebration of a lot of hard work… that only I could do for myself… by myself… and that no one really understands except for me.

I’m nearing the end of the race (unfortunately delayed at another set of lights) when another runner asks me for directions, I give them to her and suspect she’s going to follow me… but she doesn’t. Instead she turns down Spring Garden Road and so does someone else. I think to myself… What are they doing? Are they cheating? Hmmmm as it turns out… no they weren’t taking a short-cut… this is where having the correct map would have been handy. I continued on (by myself) to run the original map route… which turns out to extend my run by 2kms longer than everyone else in the race AND I ran through the finish line in the wrong direction!!! No joke… I’ll say it again… I ran through the finish line in the wrong direction! The important announcement that I missed before the race began was that the original course was too long and that we were to run down Spring Garden from South Park not up Spring Garden from Barrington! Are you kidding me? Anyway, I finish the race in 1 hour 10 mins (normally I run 10km in under 1 hour)… but I ran almost 12kms not 10kms. For the record… I didn’t even come close to finishing last even though I ran 2 extra kilometres more than everyone else! Can I hear a woot woot?

It’s an understatement to say it was somewhat anti-climatic to finish my first race and not have anyone cheer me on at the end, take a photo or record my time on the video. There is no doubt that it “bit the big one” to finish alone, but it sucked doubly for everyone waiting to see me in the rain for 1 hour only to get an annoyed phone call from me after I was done the race asking them where the heck they were!!! The next day we laughed about it, but I wanted to cry when I stepped over the finish line and all I had was a bunch of strangers giving me weird looks and wondering why I was running through the finish line in the wrong direction! Tripping over the finish line (while heading in the right direction) probably would have been less embarrassing!

The kids were a bit confused that they didn’t see me finish the race (because they were 1 block away from the finish line in the opposite direction on Spring Garden)… but I’m sure with lots of therapy they’ll get over it (though I’m not sure I will)!

There is no doubt… I have been bitten by the Race Bug and it’s definitely more contagious then H1N1! I’ve already signed up for 2 more races: the Santa Shuffle and the Resolution Run… and you can be sure on race day I’m double checking the map before the race starts!