I had always wondered if this feeling would ever hit me. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve definitely burned through my fair share of running shoe rubber over the past fifteen years, however for some reason I’ve never really felt like a runner. To describe training, I would always say I’m going for a run, however I suppose I always considered myself more of a “shuffler”, or a “jogger”. Last Sunday, that feeling changed.
Back in 2008, I recall very vividly sitting in a basement classroom at Western University with one of my graduate school colleagues. At this point in my life, I had just completed my first ironman – but no joke – I barely made it through that marathon (and my bike time was almost faster than my run). The friend that I was speaking with was/is an exceptional runner, and went on a year or two later to Boston-qualify. That one fall day, I remember sitting in the classroom telling her “I have a goal of someday running a sub two hour half marathon, but I’m not sure I can ever do it”. I felt slightly embarrassed by this goal, knowing how strong of a runner she was, but her response was a super cool and confident “of course you can!”
Chris and I arrived in Kelowna two nights prior to the Okanagan Half Marathon. We had our trip to Kelowna booked many months ago, to visit my family for the long weekend, but only decided earlier in the week we would register for the race. Chris ran with me in Melissa’s Road Race two weekends prior, and we were partly waiting to see how we felt after that before we made a decision about registering.
The day before the race my parents organized a pre-wedding “fiesta” for us. There was a ton of great food and booze. Probably too much good food and booze! If this was an “A” race for me, I probably would have made more of an effort to abstain (i.e. telling my Mom it’s not necessary to bust out the Limoncello after all the guests have left)! However, looking back I was approaching this more of a training run, and I’m not even sure I would have categorized it as a “B” race. So, bring on the martini’s!
I didn’t wake up on Sunday morning feeling incredible, knowing that was going to be the day I would achieve my goal. I didn’t even feel 100% on the morning of the race and I certainly didn’t go to the race with the intention of pushing myself too hard. I wasn’t hungover, but my stomach always seems to feel upset and nervous before a race. Regardless of all of the above, for the first time in my running “career” something finally clicked and I had an amazing race!
Chris and I made it to the start line with maybe 5-10 minutes to kill in the corral. Chris moved up to start around the 1:40 pace bunny and I settled myself in between the 2:00 and 2:15 bunnies. I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to go out and get my long run done, in preparation for NYC!
It was a perfect fall morning for a run. I started out running a comfortable, steady pace but I could see the 2hr bunny disappearing off in the distance. This didn’t really surprise me, since I’ve been dropped by the 2hr bunny in all of my previous half marathons. I also didn’t really care that much, as I wasn’t approaching this race with a time goal in mind. After 10 minutes of running, most of the pace bunnies walk for one minute (the traditional Running Room 10′s and 1′s program). After their first walk break, I had caught up to the 2hr group and they took off and started running again. This leapfrogging happened again 20 minutes later. After their second or third walk break, I was ahead of them. I could hear the bunny tell his group to slow down since they were going too fast. This made me think…. if they’re going “too fast”, and I’m ahead of them, maybe I’ll run their pace for awhile and see what happens! So I started running with the bunny and the 2hr pace group, doing 10′s and 1′s.
The Okanagan Marathon course is flat and fast. I hit the 10km mark in City Park in 54:41min. Not only was this my fastest 10km split ever, but I felt strong! We headed to the south side of the bridge for the second half of the run. However, at 12kms, our bunny announced he was going to veer off to the bathroom, and for us to keep going. No sense in me stopping, so I kept running, along with a few girls who had also been running with him. We kept expecting the bunny to catch us, and I even looked back a few times to see if I could see him but he didn’t seem to be catching up. It’s funny, all I kept thinking was, that poor pace bunny, his time is going to be way off. Never once did I think that I was going faster than a 2hr pace and had essentially “dropped” him!
One of the girls who had been running with the bunny was a nice lady named Fran. We’d never met before, but I’m sure if we lived in the same city we would be good running friends. After the bunny went MIA, Fran and I stuck together, taking a few scheduled walk breaks and pushing each other on. We chatted a little bit, but mostly we were focused on having a great race and finishing strong!
Excited to see my Mom out cheering!
I saw my Mom with about three kilometres left to go. I gave her a high-five as I ran past and had every intention of telling her how awesome of a day I was having, but I don’t think I ended up saying a single word. Fran and I agreed to take our last one minute walk break just after we saw her. We did a quick walk and then dug our heels in for the stretch to the finish! I was in the zone and totally determined at this point to finish in under two hours (for the first time ever)!
Fran had a really strong finishing kick. Stronger than mine, but I think I did a decent job keeping up with her. I was so excited to see Chris in the finishing chute, and I ended up finding him waiting right after I crossed the line. Lucky for me, he had been there waiting for about a minute. I don’t think either of us had been expecting me to finish sub 2 and I think we were both equally surprised. I couldn’t believe my time! My chip time was 1:55:58hrs! This was over eight minutes better than my previous PB – a 2:04:02 in the Ottawa Half Marathon in 2011. I shattered my previous personal best. Absolutely demolished it.
After meeting my sub 2 goal, for some reason, I finally feel like a real runner. No, nothing has changed at all from the week before the race to now. But I somehow feel validated. I’m so proud. Possibly prouder than I’ve ever been from a race before. Running has always been difficult for me, and to meet this goal makes me feel a huge sense of accomplishment! Chris had a pretty good run too! You can read his race report below.
Look how big my smile is! I almost wore my medal for the rest of the day!
As I write this, I’m ten days away from the start of the New York City Marathon. My results from the Okanagan 1/2 are a huge confidence boost going in to NYC. I’m so excited to run this once-in-a-lifetime marathon and will be sure to post a blog once I’m back. One thing to note: the New York Marathon will be my last race as a “Schwartz”!