This past Sunday August 8th was the annual Great Raisin River Footrace, which was held in Williamstown, Ontario. It's less than an hours drive away from Ottawa, nice little place and they were having their fair on the same weekend as the race. Good idea since i'd probably never have gone to the fair if there was no race :P
It was your typical small country fair with crafts, preserves, quilts, horses and a footrace for added fun. I was told there were about 1000 runners registered for the 11km and 5km races. The day started off gloomy with a bit of a chill, we went to the local high school and picked up our race bibs and our ankle bracelet timing chip thingy and made a pit stop in the washrooms. Then we drove over to the fair grounds, got parked in the field/parking lot and wadered towards the big red barn that was the focal point of the fair. The start/finish line was next to the barn and it had metal fencing on either side to ensure the runners could go through easily to get their chip time recorded when going over the electronic mats.
While we were standing around waiting and finding more and more people we know from the Running Room, lot's of recognizable faces, it started to rain. Boooo! Now normally I would have been happy with rain, but it was just cool enough that my hands were starting to get cold. So standing there in my thin tech shirt and knee length yoga pants made me worry about getting too cold, but I figured I'd warm up a lot while running so hopefully it would balance out. Just before our 9 the rain stopped.. YAY
Last minute there was a change of plans for the 5km racers.... we were supposed to start at 9am and then the 11km group were going to start 5 minutes after us, but I guess last year it caused some traffic jams when the 11km people (who are must faster) kept trying to get around us slow runners at the back. So they decided that our 5km group would walk down the end of the road where the red barn road turns to the left and we would stand to the right of the bend and watch the 11km runners go by at 9am and then our group would depart at 9:05. It worked out great! We got to see a pretty large group of runners coming straight towards us and then they turned to their left while we cheered them on with hoots, hollers and lots of applause. I think it helped them because they were all grinning like they ate the canary :P
I didn't hear the master of ceremonies tell us to go (apparently there was a countdown) I just took off when I realised we were on the move. Lynn and myself had placed ourselves at the back because we know we run slow and it was a good idea because we didn't want to get trampled hehehe It was a good race, first 10 minute stretch was a bit tough, felt stiff and tired, but the first 10 minutes always seems evil. While I was running the race I kept wondering if I felt any faster, if I felt better at what I was doing and I couldn't honestly answer yes to any of those questions for sure. If there were improvements they were too subtle to measure from the May race weekend to August. I took heart that in the practice 5km we did during our clinic that I'd run in 45:42 or something like that, which was an improvement on my 47:36 of race weekend. At one point I kind of whinned to Lynn and said "when will doing the 5km feel any easier??" On the last 2.5 km stretch I just wanted to stop and sit down for some reason... just cranky I guess LOL I was really hoping that I was faster, but I felt slower, I felt less efficient and I felt a bit sore too....So I concentrated on my running form, roll from the heel to the toes, tuck in the abs and pelvis, pump the arms and breathe! I should have concentrated the whole way like that because my final race time was 44:44 !!! YAY! New personal best. :D
After the race, we walked around the fair, I got a piece of skor cheesecake as a celebratory snack. We were going for a BBQ at Linda's for supper, so I figured small breakfast, cheesecake for lunch and then BBQ hopefully the points would even out hehehe. Today I weighed in at more than I was on Friday, remember I was saying I was happy to be back at my pre course weight? yeah, well it went up over the weekend and back down yesterday/today, but officially I'm down to close to pre-course weight. I have a feeling i'm going to go up and down several times in the 230's before I can squeeze into the 220's.
I am thankfull for large bathroom mirrors. This is not me going crazy, I have a point that is fitness, weight and life goals related with that statement. In my last post I spoke about how Pam had been our motivational speaker before running class and how she made her lists, her realistic and tangible goals. So over the last few days, while relaxing and watching TV, I decided to take my craft skills and make myself a nice list with stencils and notecards. First I typed out a list of life goals and a list of things I want. Life goals were harder to list, but I settled on these:
I want out of life:
- Goal Weight
- Be an Athlete
- Be a running instructor
- Write/Publish a book
- Plastic Surgery
Then because there were still things I wanted that weren't things that I wanted to be, but things I wanted to have, I made the second list:
Things I want:
- Garmin watch
- Size 18 pants
- To be less than 220
- Run the 5km in <42 minutes
- Fit into my brand new never worn blue winter coat (size XL)
- Fin into my leather jacket (size 1X, but feels like XL)
I also made extra cards for Size 16 pants, < 210, <200, 5km in <40, 5km in <38, so that when I acheive the first goal, I can check mark it and go towards the next goal.
As you can see from the list and the size of a regular recipe card, I'm happy that I have a huge bathroom mirror LOL
I have some pics from the Raisin Race and I think I'll take pics of my bathroom mirror, since it looks so cool. I'll try and remember to wear clothes when I take the mirror picture... since it's in front of the mirror LOL
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