Sunday, April 04, 2010

Race reports: Doing the double! (Harry Spring Runoff 8K & 5K)

My favourite part of the race weekend (other than the three-egg omelette post race accompanied by two pints of beer) was finishing the killer hill at the end of the 8K, pulling out the second bib out of my pocket and collect the timing chip for the next event about to happen.

I'll just write a little about the 8K road race for this report. This is the fifth time in six years I've run this road race. Love it. It's a spring tradition and a tactically difficult race to get through. The 8K has three major uphills and two major downhills with a few rollers. The downhills are at the mile mark (1.6K) and about 5.5K (3 miles) in. The uphills hurt. The second one is around 3K in and it's a oxygen depriving sucker. The last uphill is in the final 500 metres.

Anyways, to race it, you take the flats straight, recover on the downhills and hope you don't redline on the uphills or rollers.

The long-story short of this race is that did a decent first 5K (if only it were a 5K) and then shut it down a bit to recover. Here are the splits below. Again, didn't want to jeopardize my taper period and was thinking about the 5K coming up.

10:00:16 0.62mi 00:04:04 9.14mph 10.0mph
10:04:21 0.62mi 00:03:57 9.41mph 11.7mph
10:08:19 0.62mi 00:04:10 8.92mph 10.2mph
10:12:29 0.62mi 00:04:24 8.45mph 9.3mph
10:16:54 0.62mi 00:04:09 8.95mph 10.0mph
10:21:04 0.62mi 00:05:25 6.88mph 10.7mph
10:26:30 0.62mi 00:04:47 7.79mph 9.6mph
10:31:17 0.62mi 00:05:00 7.45mph 10.1mph
10:36:17 0.02mi 00:00:09 7.84mph 8.5mph

Finished in just over 36:06, which is pretty far off from my personal best on this course of just below 34 minutes.



5K: As I was searching for some runners I knew, I bumped into Marlene and met her husband in person. Was nice to catch up. She had a great 5K race!. We then regrouped and by then I knew I was going to jog the 5K. Enjoyed it immensely and was happy to complete it in about 31 minutes. What a start difference.

Anyways, love the two races and how many times can you put on two bibs in one morning!

My 2006 Chicago Marathon cohorts (I bought them the race reg for their birthdays)



A group of us who went to university together and edited the school paper. Man, that was 12 years ago! See my double bib.



Banana boys. I love the wacky outfits.



And post race brekkie and cookies (made to order!)


5 comments:

Marky Mark said...

Excellent! You should let Canada Running Services TV know as their commentary says that nobody has everdone the double!

And, thanks, yes, it was a great day for me.

Marlene said...

Congrats Kenny! I may join your ranks and consider the double next year. I do like the idea of wearing two bibs in once morning. Too bad you don't get a special medal for it.

Great seeing you too! What a fun morning.

Anonymous said...

ha, this is AWESOME! I've done two races in one day before, but they certainly were Not back-to-bac like that :) Very impressive!!

Boris T said...

Nice work! Congrats!

Arcane said...

Hey i recognize the gang.
BTW, that garmin plugin thing is neat.