Race Report, or something like it

Had my first race of the season on Sunday, a 10km, and it went pretty well. Considering I only really got back into running in January, not that I haven't done anything since IM last August, but I definitely wasn't running. Anyway, I digress, it was a hilly course, much more so than I expected, so my legs were dead by the end of it, but I felt pretty good. I was shooting for anything under 50 minutes as I hadn't run a 10km time trial in quite some time and had no idea what to expect. My time was 48:24, not great, but not bad all things considered. I got stuck behind some people who figured they were faster than they were so I had to jostle in and out of the crowd for the first km or so. The hills started by the 3rd km and never really stopped until 7km in at which point the rest of the course was a huge downhill. Several races were on the same course so I was never sure how I was doing until I hit the downhill and us 10kmers went one way and the half marathoners went another. I was now in the mix with the early half marathon starters, mostly walkers, so I felt like I was flying downhill as I whipped by all of them. Of course the euphoria only lasted so long as the downhill turned into a flat, then slight uphill for the last 1.5km. My legs were dead at this point and I was barely hanging onto a 4:50/km. My HR was 191, but I felt okay and at this point I just wanted to be done. I ended up 11/224 ladies and 5/68 in my age group. Not bad, now time to use this and get better :)

I'm kind of ranted out lately with all the Olympic stuff, but I will say this. I think "Own The Podium" has been a success. Are we leading the medal count? Certainly not, but look at who has come through for Canada with medals. It hasn't been all the athletes we expected to because it just wasn't their day or maybe because they were under tremendous pressure and cracked, no one knows but them. Who has come through for Canada are all the underdogs, the athletes no one even had on their radar. That's what Own The Podium has done. Speaking of underdogs, Luongo is taking the reigns now....