8km BMO Run…and a Dragon Boat Race

Today I ran. 🙂

I know to a lot of people running an 8km is nothing, it isn’t even long enough to count as their training but to me 8km is a huuuuuge accomplishment. I’ve never run that far and today I did. Today was a good day lol

The race didn’t start till 9:30am which means I got to sleep in later then if I had gone to work, yay for sleeping in! lol I had to be downtown by 8:30am at the absolute latest in order to catch the shuttle bus that would take me to the start area, I decided to get there for 8am just to play it safe, I was highly paranoid about missing the shuttle and not being able to get to the start area in time and not running, that would have sucked. Luckily that didn’t happen.

So I got downtown, checked my backpack, boarded a school bus (um, when did the leg room in those seats become sooooooo small? I barely fit!), got shuttled to the starting area and then proceeded to try to find shelter cause oh yeah, I forgot to mention, pouring rain! Brr! It was a funny sight, all these groups of people wearing running outfits huddled under huge trees trying to stay warm, limber and dry. I went under a tree for the length of time it took to write a text, I was trying to keep my phone dry-ish, after that I decided screw this I don’t want to huddle under a tree like cattle *rolls eyes*, so I wandered a bit. From where we were waiting we could see the half-marathoners go by so I went by the sidelines for a bit to cheer them on, I was encouraged by their speed. I’d had the horrible thought that I’d be the absolute slowest person out there and be passed by and left in the dust but the majority of them seemed to be running at a speed I felt I could maintain for quite a while, phew! One less thing to be freaking out about!

While standing around waiting I randomly started talking with a really nice lady named Kristi, she is from Manitoba and came here specifically for this run. Crazy huh? We chatted, she is one of those super friendly people that you just instantly get along with. Without even planning it we started running together, I thought she’d leave me behind super quick cause she has been training for this unlike I who kept intending to train and didn’t, oops! 😉 But she didn’t, we stuck together for 3-4km? I can’t quite remember the distance…the only reason we split up was she stopped to use the bathroom and I kept going. Now that I think about it maybe I should have waited, that would have been the polite thing to do…but before I could suggest waiting she waved me on and said she’d see me at the finish line as she headed off course to the washroom so I just kept going. I kept an eye out for her the rest of the run, I was absolutely convinced she’d catch up with me but I didn’t see her, and trust me I would have, she was wearing a very bright orange jacket.

At the same spot I left her there was a water station, I was one of those people grabbing a little cup of water while running by, how weird is that? I’ve only ever seen that on tv before lol Anyways, it turns out it wasn’t water, it was some sort of, I dunno, sickly sweet something, gack. It was nasty and made me thirstier then I was before I drank it. Not cool. This all happened right before a hill and about halfway up the hill I am sad to say I started to walk, I was super thirsty, had a sickly sweet taste in my mouth and I haaaaate hills. Looking back I wish I had managed to run that hill, I had run all the previous ones, because walking that hill somehow gave me permission to walk all the other hills if I felt like it, sigh. I know at the time I felt like I had to walk it, a quick walk granted but still a walk but I wish I’d pushed myself a bit harder, seen just how much more I could have done. Running is a mental game after all.

There were volunteers along the route cheering the runners on, for the most part I didn’t notice them much but there was this one group of 4 teenage boys who were holding up signs with quotes and cheering. One had a sign that was a quote from Gandalf (from Lord of the Rings) but this other sign really helped me. It said:

The voice in your head that says you can’t do it is a liar.

I know that quote, I’ve heard that quote, hell, we’ve all heard that quote or a variation on it but the timing of that sign, held by that stranger really helped me. It helped me to speed up, to run a little longer, and every time after that I wanted to stop I repeated to myself  “the voice is a liar, the voice is a liar, you can do this!”

Yeah I know,  I’m crazy lol 😛

I have multiple official times because of how they released the 8km runners on to the course, we were merging with the half marathoners who were already running, because of that our official start line was farther back which meant we started running before we actually go on to the race course. So, we crossed over two mats that registered our running chip at the beginning and then crossed over two at the end. This gave us our time for the actual distance of 8km as well as the time for the real distance we ran. My results are:

(heads up, don’t expect to be impressed or anything lol)

I did the 8km in 1:03:09

The goal I set for myself was 1:10:00 so I am very glad I beat my goal, screw glad, I am kinda proud. 🙂

But, to keep this in perspective, the fastest runner of the 8km was a guy from Victoria BC who did it in 28:20! Eesh! The average for the 1858 participants was 56:06 which means I was 7mins slower than average which, considering my lack of training and the fact that I am not a runner doesn’t seem that bad…to me lol

what my Runtastic App tracked

Every single persons name gets called as they cross the finish line, which I thought was awesome, made me feel special lol

front and back of my medal, there is a spot in the back that will get a chip inserted in to it that shows my time

As soon as you cross the finish line there are volunteers urging you to keep moving, they are thrusting water and juice boxes in to your hands, you get given a medal, then food, lots of food! A banana, some yogurt, this lunch box thing that had all kinds of yummy treats inside (all healthy) and because it’s how we roll here everything was recyclable or compostable. 🙂 I heard some people from the States commenting saying how you know you’re in Canada when not only do the garbage containers have multiple slots for all different types of recycling and composting but there is a volunteer at the garbage can to make sure you throw stuff in the right slot lol I guess I am so used to that I didn’t stop to think it might look weird to someone not from here. 😛

I then had to rush to get my bag from the bag check area, snag a cab and get to the dragon boat regatta my team was competing in today. They knew I’d be late for the races but that I’d do my best to get there as soon as I could. I missed the first two heats but got to race in the third. 🙂 They were all so happy when I showed up, all proud of my medal and asking questions about how it went. I’m so lucky to have a team that supported my doing the run rather than be mad I was going to miss part of the regatta.

We had a good third race and I heard from the team the first two races went really well also. 🙂

Then we all went for food, which fyi, from the time the race was over until about 7pm I have felt like a bottomless pit lol I started the day off with a protein packed healthy breakfast and for the most part have eaten fairly healthy throughout the day, each time I ate it was a meal with protein to try to help my poor body get over what I put it through lol

All in all I am feeling great! A bit of muscle pain in the calves and thighs, my knees are kinda sore, but nowhere near as bad as it could be. It may have been a rainy day, and I may have spent it soaked to the skin from about 9am till 1pm but it was an awesome day and I’m so glad I decided to run the 8km! Who knows, maybe I’ll run a longer race next time!…wait, next time?? What the hell am I talking about?! I’m not a runner! lol 😉

Sidenote: I apologize for the lack of pictures but I was so busy enjoying the day I didn’t think to pull out my phone and snap pics of things as I went through the day, I know I know, bad blogger! 😛 There were official pics taken but I haven’t received a link yet to see them, once I do I’ll post one so you can see how much of  a drowned rat I looked like lol

Tags: 8km, BMO Marathon 2014, dragon boat race, racing, rain, running