My momma taught me "if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all". Well, I'll say a few things anyway ... I've had two really positive experiences at the Chilly Half-Marathon, both in 2016 and 2017. Maybe it's because they were freebies to me, maybe it's because I managed to clock PB times at both races. But those outings were certainly enough to entice me to go for it a third time around, and this time to actually foot the bill myself. Alas, perhaps I was getting a bit greedy. Having signed up a little less than a year ago (to nab the super-earlybird rate) I wanted to once again approach this race as a bit of a barometer as to my fitness level going into the spring racing season. In consultation with my coach it was clear that this was not a target race and that the training plan would have been structured differently had this been something that was intended to be a goal-oriented event - all the same I knew that in my previous two attempts here I had not peaked for this race either, and held some faint hopes in the back of my head that I might once again pleasantly surprise myself.
The real story of this year's Chilly Half was about my friends - from Gillian (who picked up my race kit for me and saved me an extra trip to Burlington), to Stan (somehow I keep running into this guy despite the masses of people - some 3600 strong - who show up on race morning), to lining up with Jack (a fellow Trinity College alum with whom I'd had the pleasure of reconnecting at the 2016 EndurRUN) and Jeremy (my bud from Barrie who seems to PB in just about every race he enters), to finally Steve (a star Black Lungs athlete who hopped off of the sidewalk to pace me for the final kilometre of the race). These people are the ones who really made an otherwise difficult race memorable, and who helped temper my disappointment with the result. All in all it was a tough day - with some gusty winds, although the sun was out, the roads were clear and the temperatures manageable (at about -3°C). The race again featured a couple of Olympians (Reid Coolsaet and Krista DuChene) and all sorts of performance-level club runners (including my friends Josh Bolton, Rob Brouillette and Tanis Bolton), so the field was fast. It was my impression that a fast field encourages/drafts all participants to run that little bit faster, but maybe that's more in my imagination that in reality. The short version is that my legs just didn't have any pop on this particular day, and that every time I thought that I was injecting a bit of pace it was effectively no change at all. The strongest part of my race came as Steve Elliott jumped in to help me over the final km and I was able to pass a few of the runners ahead of me to gut it out for a 1:29:51 finish. Thank goodness for small mercies, as if I'd clocked 1:30 or more I would definitely have walked away with my head hung low given where I thought that I was in terms of my speed, conditioning and strength.
It was still a good day out there for Jeremy (who came across in 1:24:14) and my friends Peter (who managed a PB in 1:26:46) and Gillian (a PB as well!), so I'm happy to celebrate their great achievements! For my part I'll put my focus back onto executing my coach's training plan for my sub-3 marathon attempt in Mississauga. And we'll see what happens when I step up to the start line again in the Hamilton region for the 2018 edition of the Around The Bay 30k in three weeks' time ... Key race gear used:
Can we say "second time's a charm"? I know that that's not how the saying goes, but the second time in two years I've been the beneficiary of somebody opting to not arrive at the start of the Chilly Half-Marathon, and therefore being offered the opportunity to transfer their bib to me. While I did not originally have the Chilly Half on my radar for 2017 still it fit into my plan of racing shorter distances (i.e. no full marathons for me) this year. Climbing the age group ladder I had resolved to try to work on improving my overall speed by focusing on 5k and 10k races, with a smattering of half-marathons tossed in for good measure. But when my friend Steve informed me that his wife was not feeling prepared enough to tackle the Chilly Half and that the bib was mine if I wanted it ... well, at that point in time I wanted it. :) Pre-race Being fairly fluid with my training plans I sort-of used a schedule from RunBritain.com to try to prepare myself for a decent race. However I was mostly looking forward to being able to join my friends Mike and Dave for another roadtrip (as we'd made this trek last year with another friend Carol), along with their friends Becky and Ashlen. We were also planning to meet our pal (and fellow RunNinja) Rad who was going to be running his first Chilly Half, and likely right around the pace that I was also going to target. For the second year in a row I did not attend the expo held at Mercedes-Benz Burlington as Mike's dad (running the Frosty 5k with Dave, Becky and Ashlen) offered to pick up our race kits. All we had to do was show up on Sunday morning and arrange a meeting point in order to nab our bibs and step up to the start line. The departure from Barrie at 6:50am provided us with an indication that this would indeed be a chilly race day - raw temps were around -11°C (with a windchill closer to -20°C) but thankfully without any precipitation. We watched Mike's dashboard thermometer carefully and saw the readout climb to about -8°C when we pulled into a free parking lot in Burlington, about a block away from City Hall and the start/finish chute. Aside from using the washroom multiple times (see: cold-induced diuresis) and staying warm inside City Hall, it was just a waiting game of about 90 min. before joining the masses in the starting chute. I did note that I spotted one other runner wearing exactly the same Skechers Performance warm-up kit as I was, so I went over to say hi and create a deliberately awkward 'we should have told each other what we were planning to wear' moment ... but it turned out to be fellow Skechers athlete Paul Rochus (who wound up finishing 7th overall), and so I was happy to try to absorb some speed by osmosis. We managed to meet up with our good friends Rad and Emily just about 30 min. before gun time, and I was amazed to find out that even after having had about a litre of water or sport-drink that morning he had no need to go to the washroom. Must be nice to be young, fast, and have a superhuman bladder. The race Rad and I lined up together and wound up running the first 4km or so side-by-side, with Mike quickly leaving us in his dust. We were clipping along decently at a shade over 4:00/km with a noticeably robust head-and-crosswind, and as it was with last year's event I found that the first quarter or so of the course was an easy out-and-back loop that kept the energy high because there were plenty of runners to see as you passed back and forth. It was a bit of a game of 'where's Waldo' as there were a number of folks whom I recognized on the confirmed entry list but hadn't yet seen on the day so I was hoping to shout a 'hey what's up' as I spotted them. I did my best to try to find a small group of runners to 'latch onto' that would help me stay on target pace, and to that extent there were four Longboat Roadrunners who seemed to be pressing forward at the same rate as yours truly. I also managed to catch up with someone in an Adaptive Running singlet (Larry) representing the crew co-founded by my friend and running hero Stan. Larry was aiming for a casual sub-1:25, so I knew that I wouldn't be hot on his heels but wanted to keep him in sight. The rolling course essentially offered up about 13km of wind resistance, and it wasn't until the second hairpin turnaround that we experienced any subsiding of the wind, perhaps even some benefit from it. At that pivot point I'd seen Mike flying by way ahead of me (by a good 4+ minutes) and Rad only trailing by maybe 40 seconds at most. I was still feeling reasonably light on my feet and was doing my level best to work the downhills and not redline it climbing the slight uphill sections. Once again at the 16k point (Appleby Line) I tried to give it some more gusto and managed to find myself creeping up slowly on some of the competitors who were ahead of me. With about 2k to go I was trying to follow the rhythm and cadence of a female racer who seemed to be barely working at all (while I was sounding a whole lot like a rabid dog panting in the middle of the desert), and managed to yet again find one extra gear for the final 1000m. I was far from sprinting (as the finishing chute photo below will attest) and was actually outkicked by another runner who caught me from behind in the last 150m, but in checking the race clock I could see that I was going to cross the line with a modest (13s) personal best.
Yep, that's me hurtin' my way to NYC Marathon qualifying time!
Post-race It was awesome to see Rad come flying in behind me by a mere minute, shattering his previous PB in the half-marathon by about 2-1/2 minutes. When we reconnected with Mike, we found that he'd also crushed his previous PB by close to 2 minutes with a 52nd place 1:19 race!
It was so great to chat with other race friends on the day as well - Vicki (8-time ENDURrunner), Peter (part of J.P.'s Team), Jeff (who was a default pacer for my 2015 Waterloo Marathon BQ), and fellow Team Skechers athletes Kirstin, Josh, Tanis and Rob. It hadn't turned out to be such a great day for Kirstin or Josh, as both of them had experienced physical issues during the race (so much so that Josh had pulled himself out, which is why I saw him jogging on the sidewalk against the flow of runner traffic at the 10k point). I also managed to finally meet my social media friend Tyler, who was there supporting his Grand River Endurance teammates (Josh and Tanis and Rob) but was himself nursing an injury and not racing on the day. So despite the race living up to its name, it was another worthwhile trip to Burlington. Now it's time to tackle a few more short races before hitting up the Pick Your Poison 50k at the end of April! Race gear for the 2017Chilly Half-Marathon:
Who looks a gift-horse in the mouth? Not me! My friend Bill messaged me a couple of weeks ago to ask if I knew of anyone who would be interested in taking over his bib for this year's Chilly Half-Marathon. He had a scheduling conflict arise and didn't want to let his registration go to waste, generously offering to let anyone take his spot pro bono. While I didn't have a half-marathon on my radar this spring I have thought about taking on this race for a number of years given it's popularity (meaning that there would be some very strong runners out there against whom I could gauge myself) and its positioning in the season as a decent litmus test for the kind of condition one might be in for a projected late-spring/early-summer marathon. With that in mind I told Bill that I would be happy to take his place, paying the extra $10 to transfer his bib over to my name. Budda-bing-budda-boom ... I'm now a late registrant for the Chilly Half! Oi ... what did I get myself into? Pre-race Without really putting in much of a taper I simply adjusted my workouts for the week of Feb. 29-Mar. 6 to accommodate a race at the end of the week. Had I thought this process through with a greater degree of clarity I might not have opted to take on the hill repeat workout two days before the race however ... My friend and fellow RunNinja Mike (and soon to be new friend Dave) were good enough to pick up my race kit for me on Saturday - apparently the 'expo' was housed in the basement of the Burlington Mercedes-Benz dealership and wasn't anything to really write home about, so I feel like I didn't miss much by not going myself. What worked out especially well was that after picking up my kit from Mike offered to have me join them in carpooling down to the race the next morning as our expected departure times matched up. Initially I was going to opt out and trek down on my own as I'm (a) a rabid introvert, and (b) the last few times that I've carpooled with others to a race I've not performed optimally. Recognizing that the latter really had nothing to do with the company I was keeping and that I had no need to be superstitious (I really had no specific goals for this race after all) I decided that it would be a smarter decision to become one of these three Barrie amigos heading down the QEW. Aside from the whole non-targeted, non-taper thing I decided to treat this event as a key race in every other way - including trying to mini-carb load, early-to-bed, first-thing shakeout run and pre-race fuelling. Having gotten that all in I was psychologically in racing mode which helped me get over the feelings of soreness in my calves (oh, hill repeats ...) and the cumulative fatigue of the workout week. I was also keen to cheer on Mike and Dave in the 5k, as well as catching up with my buds Steve, Rhonda, Stan, Nav, and Tyler.
Meeting up at 7:00am (a relative sleep-in when it comes to most race start times!) we hit the highway for Burlington and it was all smooth sailing on the roads. We arrived in town with more than 90 min. to spare - plenty of time to snag prime street-meter parking, hit the (indoor!) washrooms before any significant line-ups, scout out the start/finish areas (HM and 5k had different start locations) and try to spot any familiar faces who were also milling about. As Mike and Dave had clearly read through the info sent by the race organizers whereas I had not, they noted that runners were expected to make their way toward their respective corrals at about 30 min. before the start, so we parted ways with best wishes for a great race at around 9:30am. Having picked my spot in the corral right around the 1:30 pacer, the crowd started to fill in ... and with about three minutes to I go I got a poke in the elbow from the guy beside me. It turned out to be Stan! I was really pleased to see him as he's such a great guy, spectacular runner and coach, and my flight-home companion after next month's Boston Marathon! Of course I asked him about his hopes for his race, knowing that he'd come up with something conservative - and sure enough he indicated that as this would round out a 130km week of training for him he was hoping for something sub-1:25. Yeah, I'm lining up next to that guy.
ok, that's not really my corral ...
It was also great to bump into a couple of other Skechers ambassadors - Erin (who was still recovering from the flu) and Kirstin were in the same section and are both extremely fast and capable runners. I was happy to be anywhere near them, and felt in good company from the get-go. The race
At just a few minutes after 10:00am the horn blew and we were off. I tried to abide by the cardinal rule of not going out too fast so I didn't let my ego get (too) bruised as runners started to blow by me on my left and right. I watched as Stan faded off into the slew of speedsters in front of me and I just focused on dialing into a pace that would be comfortable enough to sustain for 90 min. or so. The course is shaped with a T, with two hairpin turns and the ends of the top cross-section - this meant that after starting out about 600m or so we made a sharp right. It may have been the early nervous energy, the turn or the still clustered groups but one runner about 50m in front of me did a total ramble-tackle of a large orange road pylon which left him face-planted on the ground. He wasn't hurt and was able to get back up and into the fray alright - but it was an interesting start to the race. After about 2k I could hear some light and quick footsteps coming up from behind me - and in no time I could see out of my peripheral vision that my friend Rhonda (with whom I'd run a 30k training run just six days before) had caught me and locked into my cadence. Being a lightning fast runner herself I thought that if we trucked along together for a ways that that would bode well for my anticipated outcome. Somewhere just after the 4k mark she edged ahead, and I feared that I was slowing down already ... so I yanked ever-so-slightly on my proverbial bootstraps and picked up the pace. I was hoping to latch onto a group running at a comparable clip to what I was laying down but as it turned out the middle miles were chock full of forward-and-reverse traffic ... runners passing me and then slowing up to be passed by me again. As I checked my splits intermittently it looked like I was keeping a fairly even rhythm, so I'm not sure whether or not the minor undulations on the course were making a difference.
Approaching the turnaround at roughly 13k I could see that there were two runners jockeying for the lead, with one of them being the Skechers elite athlete Josh Bolton. I yelled out my encouragement to him as a fellow Skechers (but far from elite) athlete but I could tell that he was pretty focused on trying to take this race so I didn't expect any kind of acknowledgment. I also saw Steve and Stan pass by on their home half of the loop before I hit the hairpin and also tried to root them on with some boosting words. One quick side note: I had a couple of interesting observations regarding the aid stations. While they were evenly spaced and in sufficient number along the course I wasn't crazy about the fact that the water cups were plastic. The electrolyte drink was in your standard wax-paper coated cups which are typically compostable, but with these plastic cups they were probably going to hit the landfill - and add to that the fact that they would crack (and leak out what little water they may have been holding) when trying to perform the hook-and-pinch maneuver. The other thing was that they didn't offer gels at any of the aid stations (even with Clif Bar as one of the race sponsors) which kind of surprised me ... even though races that do have gels usually make them available way too late (around 18km for the half-marathon or 38k for the marathon) so I don't depend on them. Still, I thought that they would be out there to be had.
During the ride down with Mike and Dave we'd talked a bit about the power of visualization, and I'd mentioned that having done a bit of online course scouting I planned to try to push it a bit harder at around the 16k mark (which was conveniently enough as we crossed Appleby Line so I could use the street sign as a mental cue). So I did try to bump it up a gear at that point although I'm sure that it looked more like me just bumbling along a little more awkwardly than usual - still, it felt like the guys who were distancing themselves in front of me were no longer doing so as I was now keeping pace with them. Where it got interesting was just before the 19k mark as I heard footsteps closing in from behind and then falling into rhythm with my own cadence. I decided to turn to this hanger-on and say "we can catch the next two guys ahead of us" as a way of motivating us both. Well, doesn't he say "you got it - just stay behind me" and push just ahead of me - I could then see that he looked a bit older than I (maybe in his early 50s) and sporting a Longboat Roadrunners singlet. I would later figure out that this guy was the president of the club, Roger Moss, an accomplished marathoner and coach - but to me he was like the home-stretch pacer who yanked me into his wake as we closed the gap and then slingshotted past the two runners that I'd eyeballed. With 1000m left to go I told myself that it was time ...
I could see that there was a female runner about 75m ahead of me and called on whatever reserves I had left - pumping my arms up and down, hands spread out karate chopping the air, grunting like crazy - to try to reel her in. I managed to do so just before the final turn down towards the finishing strait. Then it was just all out as I spied a 1:26:xx on the clock and knew that I would be crushing my previous half-marathon PR of 1:36:58.
Gotta love the pics where you're airborne!
Post-race
Almost immediately after crossing the timing mat I spotted Mike and Dave who were busy snapping pics and trying to capture the moment for me (and who also brought my backpack with clothes to change into to stay warm). They'd both just completed clocking their own new PBs in the 5k - Mike having come through in a blistering 17:37 and Dave smashing his old PB by more than four minutes with a 31:29. I also spotted Steve with some of his fellow Black Lungs compatriots and went over to congratulate him on a solid effort. He was disappointed with the result (a measly 1:21:27 ... pssshaw!) given that he was probably capable of a solid 1:18 at this time. Still, I offered some small consolation and then we progressed down the chute to pick up finisher medals, water, fruit, granola bars and Muscle Milk protein drinks (not a bad little exit buffet!).
After snapping a few obligatory post-race pics Mike, Dave and I headed for Wendel Clark's Classic Grill and Bar, one of the four or so restaurants that was offering a free beer and bowl of Stagg chili to all race participants. This was surprisingly easy to get to (close to the start/finish area), the patio was none too busy and the chili in plentiful supply. I passed my Steam Whistle beer over to Dave (as I don't drink) and was happy to just enjoy the meaty meal and great company.
I couldn't have imagined a better experience with my first Chilly Half-Marathon - really fantastic friends, a pleasing race result and lots of great memories. If you're looking to dot your 2017 calendar with a spring half, make sure to consider this race! Race gear for the 2016 Chilly Half-Marathon:
