Mother's Day 10K

It's been over two weeks since my last race and I still haven't written a race report. To be fair, things have been a little hectic around here.

On Sunday, May 12 -- Mother's Day -- I ran in the Sporting Life 10K down Yonge Street for Camp Ooch. This was my third time doing this race, and it's definitely my favourite course. It's just so much fun to run straight down Yonge Street.

This year, I set a goal of running a 10K faster than than last year -- actually I wanted to run a sub-65 minute race. But as the winter dragged on and on, and I felt extremely unmotivated to train, I believed that such a finish time just wasn't possible. I just didn't train enough to feel I could achieve that goal and as race day approached, I figured I'd be lucky if I could shave a minute off my best time (which was 1:09:37 by the way).

But on the morning of the race, I made a pact with myself. I decided that if I wasn't completely exhausted when I got to the end -- then I hadn't tried hard enough to go faster. I mean, what's the point of having energy in reserve at the finish line?

And so, at 8:30 a.m. on a rather chilly morning, I started out down Yonge Street with 27,000 of my closest friends. Apparently it was the largest charity race in Canada -- or something like that.Whatever it was, it's the first time I've participated in a race where it actually feels crowded. After the first kilometre or so, it spread out, but even then, you still had to be careful as you weaved around people and passing definitely involved an extra burst of speed.

I decided not to use my running app -- figuring the voice in my ear would just frustrate me if I wasn't at a pace I thought was acceptable -- and just decided to run and enjoy myself.

And I did. At the 1K mark I gave high-fives to my cheering squad. At the 5K mark I took a short walking break to have a drink. But I felt good and felt the need to keep moving on rather than resting. And so I did.

By 7K, my legs wanted to quit but I told myself to keep pushing on. By 8K my brain wanted to quit but I told myself to keep pushing on. I barely remember 9K -- I was too busy telling myself to keep pushing on.

About 500 metres to go

When I crossed the finish line, I was exhausted but didn't know my exact time. The clock at the finish line said 1:37 and change -- so since my corral started 30 minutes after gun time, I easily subtracted 30 minutes from that time and figured I finished around an hour and seven minutes.

I was pretty damn happy with that.

And then...about an hour later, I was finally able to log in and see my actual time -- 1:03:37!

I had shaved off exactly 6 minutes from my previous personal best time! I don't know how I pulled that off -- but the sore legs the next day proved to me that I did.

I was ecstatic and still am. That's probably the last time I'll run that specific 10K race (27,000 people was just too crowded for me) but there'll be other 10K races in my future. That personal best time motivated me to run again.

Now it's time to look forward to my 5K with Austin and to decide if I'm crazy enough to run the half marathon again this fall.

My cheering squad