Spring into Motion 5k - Race Report

I had this date marked on my calendar a long time ago to get my season started. The Spring into Motion 5k was a perfect race to get my 2011 events rolling as it was super close (to home) and held on a quick, relatively flat course. I wanted to check my speed and overall run progress before hitting the Mississauga Half Marathon in May and thought this would be a perfect chance to do so.

Listening to the weather reports leading up to race day, I could tell we may be in for some trouble and they were not lying! I woke up early and looked out the window to see snow and hail flying across my window. I took a step outside the door and the cold and gusting wind did not impress me at all. At this point, I actually talked myself out of racing and went back to bed.

Thirty minutes later, my daughter came into the room and woke us up. Now it was sunny out so I went back downstairs to check the temperature and the air was much warmer. With a hour to spare until race time, I quickly got geared up and jumped into the car to make my way up to the event site.

Unfortunately, the nice weather was short lived. When I hopped out of the car it was snowing and windy once again but it was too late to turn back now.

After trying to warm up in the elements, I hit the start line and got ready to give it my best. As they sent us off, I settled in behind Tim Shannon (a local speedster who has won this race the past few years) and hoped to escape some of the wind. Being a little larger than Tim, this did not protect me as much as I planned. After a little more than a kilometre we were running slightly uphill and getting hammered by the wind. We hit the first km marker in 3:23 and I was praying that this early effort into the wind would not hurt too much further down the road.

During the next kilometre, there was a tailwind, going downhill so I was sticking very close to the pace I needed for my goal but Tim was starting to pull away from me. I was running alone by the time we started to hit the twisting stretch in the South Georgetown subdivisions.

As my watched beeped to warn me about pace, I could not find the 3km marker (it had been downed by the wind) so I was running a little blind but was pretty sure I was starting to feel the effects of too much effort at the start of the race.

Coming out of a crescent street, my watch alerted me about the 4th goal split. I looked up ahead and found the 4k sign so, at this point, I knew I was not hitting my targets. With a good gap ahead and behind me I could have just eased in to the finish but I knew I needed a solid, full race effort out of this race to judge my current fitness so I kept the pedal down.

The final portion of the course took me across an icy wooden bridge back to the community centre park. In the park there was an asphalt path for the final 500m or so but most of the last sprint would be into the wind.

Just as I was ready to make my final turn, I could hear the cheers for Mr. Shannon as he wrapped up his race in 16:35. I knew I could not get there in less than 25 seconds (to hit my goal), especially, into this silly wind but I gave it every last drop of energy to finish strong.

Final time ended up being 17:24 for 2nd overall. This is 6 seconds slower than my PB from last year but I know the weather added many seconds to this result and really messed with the game plan Tyler and I discussed.

I have to thank Brad and his Feet in Motion crew for putting on another great event in trying conditions. Brad knows how to keep the athletes happy and his prizes are second to nobody!

Check out the video below to see how windy the start was!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_AMMBMP1LU