November 5, 2006
A perfect day for running at the scenic Angus Glen golf course for their second annual charity run. I selected this race based on a 16 week training schedule found in the Running Room book by John Stanton and wanted to committ to a race to stay motivated during the summer. With my past marathon time in mind I wanted to aim for 1:35 for the 1/2 and believed it would be a very tough challenge, especially with the hilly course ahead of me.
As we finished our pre-race stretches I wished a friend good luck and headed to the line to wait for the final few seconds for the horn. The fire truck hit the horn and we took off from the golf course and down a quick stretch of highway on Kennedy. This led to a nice, new sub-division where we weaved through the freshly paved streets at a pretty quick pace for the first few km's. I felt great but didn't want to get too carried away with the others and kept to my own race. After running through the maze of houses we ran back out to Kennedy and headed north up a decent slope past the golf course. As we filed up the road the pack started to thin and a bunch of us settled in to a nice pace at just over 4 minutes / km. This group continued to move together out to the east on Elgin Mills and towards the eight and nine km markers. A few dropped back after hitting some minor hills near the next intersection at McCowen where the great volunteers directed us north again up. We hit the 10km marker in 44 minutes and I was very happy to be in the hunt for my goal with plenty of energy in the tank. The pack seemed to drop to three at the halfway point and we started to hit more hills as we travelled west along 19th Sideroad. At this point my legs were ready for the challenge so I kept the rythym going and started to pick runners off one at a time with some pretty good hill work. It was a 5 km uphill section and I had made up roughly ten spots and was still running strong and counting down the km's. I hit Warden and started head south where a headwind confronted us and started to wear some of the other runners down. I could see around four in the horizon and took aim to reel them in. Running as confidently as ever, I passed all but one in the next two km's and settled inline with the last one of my targets. We hit the downhill together and pulled away from the others as we neared the last three km's. We grabbed a final drink in the valley and up the hill back to Kennedy we ran. I could now feel the legs getting heavier but he was in the same condition and was soon in my past. As I hit Kennedy the funnel effect create a new look as the 10 km runners/walkers merged with us so I weaved my way through the masses but couldn't tell who I was passing or may try to pass me? I don't think anyone was fresh enough so I turned on a final kick for good measure down the stretch ino the golf course drive and finished strong in 1:30:26 (chip time) for a negative split on the back side capping a very satisfying race.
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