I guess my 2012 race season officially began back on St.Paddy's Day when I ran the St.Paddy's Day 10km. I find 10kms so hard and they never get any easier...so tough to get the legs moving quick when i'm used to the longer stuff! Anyhow, I managed to come 10th female overall and roughly equalled my PB of 41:20ish. I was super pleased with that...a nice early season race to get me pumped for a nice long Spring/Summer/Fall of racing ahead!
This past weekend I raced the Rocky Mountain Soap Women's half marathon in Canmore. It was a fabulously hilly and tough course but i loved it!! It totally suits me and definitely something I excel at when it comes to running up hills! I wasn't sure how this was going to feel during a speedy half marathon and my main goal was to not go out too fast...the first 3 or 4km have you leaving the Canmore Nordic Centre and running down down down. I didn't want to trash my quads so tried to hold back. I was running with a few other other women off the start and it quickly became myself and another girl named Somer that took the lead. We switched back and forth a couple of times in the beginning till around 5km or so when I decided we were running slower than I would like and decided to pick it up a bit. I figured she would go with me but she didn't and I slowly continued to increase the gap for the rest of the race. Something about running in the lead though...running scared...ugh, hate that feeling! I'm always expecting someone to come out of nowhere and blow by me. That's what I was feeling the whole race even though I couldn't see anyone back there.
It was pretty much an out and back course so at the halfway point i figured i'd do a little timing to see how long it was till I saw the 2nd place female...it was about 1:30 which i figured meant i was around 3 mins ahead. Not too bad. I was hurting a little at this point but on the way back I was meeting everyone that was behind me and I was getting cheers from everyone...it was great and was really motivating. I tried to say good job to everyone as much as I could but yeah I was feeling a little rough. I took my second gel at around 16km and it was a huge pick me up. I was ready to roll for the last 5 km and was pumped to get this race overwith and hopefully win! When I got to the 18km point my quads were so beat and I knew I had a lot of uphill left to go as I remembered how fast I ran down this in the beginning. I pushed on and the remaining kms surprisingly went by pretty quick. I finished up at the Nordic Centre in 1:31:06, only 1 min off my half PB on a flat course, and super pumped with my first victory of the season! Hopefully that's a sign of good things to come :)
Up next is the Sun Mountain 50km this weekend in Washington. I'm pretty stoked, should be fun! My brother is running the 50 mile and yeah I really don't think i'm there yet! A 50km is enough for me right now! After that I'm doing the Fast Trax 50 mile in Edmonton in mid June - not much in the way of elevation in that race but I figured it'll be a good training run building up time on my feet. Following that will be Rundles Revenge 50km in Canmore that I ran last year and placed 2nd female in.
In July i'm taking part in a relay in the Sinister 7 (146km) - not sure which leg I'll be running yet but i'm flipping pumped for this race! I may do the whole thing solo next year so we'll see how the relay goes! My other race in July is the Powderface 42 which I haven't raced since 2009 when I placed 3rd female. I like that course, it's pretty dang tough and another good training race.
These races are all leading me to my big one for the summer...the Canadian Death Race baby, in Grand Cache! After following my brother on twitter last year while he raced it and killed it, finishing in 4th, I knew that it was going to be my goal race for 2012. 125km will be my longest race ever so i've got lots of running to do! A month after Death Race, I've signed up to do the Lost Souls Ultra 100km in Lethbridge in early September. I've always wanted to do this race and it's usually sold out by the time I get around to looking into it.
So yeah that's it...kind of sounds like a lot of races once you write them all down. I'm excited. It's gonna be great!
Stay tuned for more blogging...I promise! :)
Deb
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