I put off writing this race report all day yesterday. It’s so hard to write a report of something that was so long and so emotional. I thought a lot about my race yesterday. I second guessed some of the decisions I made, I thought about the amazing, gorgeous, words-can’t-even-describe-how-beautiful-it-was course, I alternated between being grateful and happy for my race and mad at myself for not pushing harder mentally the last 5K. In the end, I ran a marathon. My second marathon but not my last. I smiled and laughed more than I didn’t. I spent four hours with a new friend who has now become a good friend. And that is all that really matters.

Onto the real report. Let’s start from the beginning…

The night before I laid out all my stuff like always. I had my race outfit, my fuel and everything I would need to use before leaving the hotel like deodorant, sunscreen, body glide and vaseline.

I was wide awake when my alarm went off at 5:00 AM. I crawled out of bed and got all my stuff ready, made some coffee, choked down a bagel with PB and a banana and tweeted a photo of my race outfit and told people to yell if they saw me. So glad I did this because Stacey, Jackie and Erin all spotted me and said ‘hi’ to me because of this! I knew lots of twitter/blog friends who were running the marathon and it was fun to read all the tweets with the #runvan hashtag before leaving my hotel!

I left around 6:15 and walked the 2 km to the skytrain station where I was planning to meet Brittany. There was a huge line-up of runners waiting to buy tickets to get on the skytrain. At 6:50 AM there were still a bunch of half-marathoners in the line-up too (their race was at 7 am). Finally someone who worked there just came up and said “just get on, you can buy your tickets at the exit” Thank goodness they did that or a lot of people would have been late for their race. I think it’s awesome that translink was so accommodating to the runners.

Britt met me on the platform and we both got on the skytrain and right away someone said “Amber?” and it was Stacey! We have been tweeting back and forth about our training for a few months now so it was really cool to see her. We all ended up walking to the start together and getting a photo – Twitter friends are seriously the best!

We saw the half-marathoners starting as we were walking to the start and that was exciting too!

I also ran into my friend from high school and tried to meet up with two people from my running group but couldn’t coordinate meeting them. It was awesome to see so many people I knew before starting and really helped calm my nerves! Check out the pretty mountain view while we were waiting around.

Britt and I headed to our corral shortly after arriving at the start line and waited around there. We did a long run together a month before when I was in Vancouver and had both been training for a 4:30 marathon finish so we decided to run together and stick together for as much of the race as possible. Running the race WITH someone was the BEST THING EVER and I’m so glad we did this.

Anyways, before we knew it we were inching our way to the start (which I neglected to take a picture of) and we were off. The course started on a hill and then moved into some rollers and I felt really anxious and “off” at first. It took me a good 6-7 K to finally feel like I was settling into a pace.

Mile 1 – 9:57, Mile 2 – 9:43, Mile 3 – 9:51, Mile 4 – 9:35, Mile 5 – 9:50

We were doing 10 and 1′s (10 minutes running and 1 minute walking) and cruising along when we made it to the hill I had heard so much about.

While I am glad this hill came so early in the race it was a killer! I had just settled into my pace when we climbed this thing and it totally threw my pace off again.

Mile 6 – 10:47, Mile 7 – 10:40, Mile 8 – 11:01, Mile 9 – 10:16, Mile 10 – 10:27

The next few miles were through the UBC campus and we were on a wide road with huge trees on both sides. It offered some really nice shade and was really pretty! Around mile 8 I sent my first tweet saying we were feeling good. Britt and I were still together and chatting away.

We had a nice downhill right before reaching the halfway point. And while it felt really good we were conscious to not go too hard and kill our knees and quads.

We reached the halfway point in 2:14:29, which was perfectly on pace for our 4:30 goal. We were both feeling awesome!

  

Mile 11 – 10:13, Mile 12 – 10:11, Mile 13 – 9:55, Mile 14 – 10:16, Mile 15 – 10:34

The next few miles were a bit of a blur. We ran along the Spanish Banks, Jericho Beach and Kitsilano beach. This part of the course followed the same route as the Scotiabank Half-marathon (which I ran in 2009) and it was gorgeous with some amazing ocean and mountain views. There were a few tough points in here where Britt and I were basically counting down to our next walk. We kept saying 5 minutes to go, 4 minutes to go, 3 minutes to go etc.

I felt really, really crappy around mile’s 15 – 17 (25K – 28ishK) and neither of us were talking much other than to say “we’re running a freaking marathon!” “we’re awesome!” “best time ever!” and a few random cheers to get our morale up. I also started counting down until we would see Eric as he was waiting for us at km 32 (mile 20ish).

Soon we were hitting the Burrard Bridge. Another decent climb. I knew we’d see Eric shortly after crossing the bridge but we were both in pretty low spirits by this point so to pick ourselves up we came down off the bridge and started cheering and waving our arms like crazy for the race photographer – can’t wait to see the photo!

Mile 16 – 10:20, Mile 17 – 10:41, Mile 18 – 11:05, Mile 19 – 10:54, Mile 20 – 11:10

Before we knew it we were at the Inukshuk and km 32! I came down around the corner and saw Eric standing there and started waving wildly at him. I was sooo happy to see him!

Look at those smiles! Can you tell we’re in a bit of pain here? Ha!

We dropped our water belts with him, I gave him a quick (and super sweaty) kiss and we were off! Only 10 km to go. But I knew from my last marathon that these would be the toughest 10 km of the whole thing…and they were.

 

I was excited to enter the seawall as I knew it would be flat and gorgeous. But I was also tired and my legs were getting pretty sore. We were just tried to keep up with our 10 and 1′s and keep smiles on our faces.

I actually started to feel pretty good about 2 miles after seeing Eric. Unfortunately, Britt was having some stomach issues so after running for 21 miles (33 km) together we said our goodbyes and promised to meet up at the finish line. I plugged in my music for the FIRST time the entire marathon and off I went! I felt really good for about 2 more miles and then it all went downhill from there.

Mile 21 – 11:14, Mile 22 – 10:50, Mile 23 – 11:04

Around mile 22.5 (36ish km) I started feeling really nauseous and off and also had to pee really badly. I told myself I only had 5K to go and I could do this but I wasn’t feeling very mentally strong at this point. Finally when I came up to the mile 23 aid station I decided to pop into the porta-potty. I had been on pace for a 4:30 goal this ENTIRE race but that bathroom break put me about 1.5 minutes behind my pace band and, in a moment of mental weakness I felt really discouraged and just threw it off.

The next 5K were brutal you guys. My stomach was cramping. I wanted to puke. I knew it was only 5K but I just didn’t have it in me to push anymore. I walked a lot. At mile 25 I tried to call Eric and was almost in tears. I was so mad at myself and was being super negative in my head.

Mile 25 – 10:56

I finally got out of Stanley Park and came up around a corner and was heading uphill (meanies!) back into the city again when I saw Karen on the edge of the road cheering! It was so great to see her smiling face and I gave her a hug and said “this is SO HARD” and she was like, “you’re almost there!!!” so I took off again.

I had to go up the block a bit further and around a corner to get to the finish line. At this point I looked at my watch and knew if I kept running I could make it under 4:40 and at least have a time that STARTED with a 4:3x so I got my butt moving.

Mile 26 – 11:40, Mile 26 – 26.2 – 10:34

Eric was waiting for me at the end and got this photo of me coming in.

I crossed the finish line and immediately bent over and put my hands on my knees. I was sure I was going to throw up. A medic came over and encouraged me to walk around so I walked down and talked to Eric through the fence but told him I wanted to wait for Britt. I went and got my medal (who I happened to get from a girl I went to middle school with – I knew she’d be there since I saw on Facebook but still small world!)

Once Britt crossed the finish line I gave her a HUGE hug and then we walked out of the finish area to find Eric so she could get her cell phone and call her husband. I immediately started eating some salty potato chips and felt 100x better within a few minutes of eating them. I then felt really upbeat and was super energetic despite the fact that I’d just ran a marathon!

We went back to our hotel so I could shower and then checked out and got on the road, with a quick stop for some very greasy – and very delicious – pizza!

Final Stats:

Chip time: 4:39:07

Age place (19-24): 68/102

Gender place: 1126/1838

Final Thoughts: 

I’m not going to lie. I’m disappointed I didn’t hit my 4:30 goal time. I know if I’d pushed harder that last 5 km I would have done it and while I was battling nausea and stomach cramps I also didn’t push myself mentally at all. I would say the last 5 km of this marathon were equally as hard as the last 5 km of my half-marathon in October where I ran sub-2. The difference was I dug deep mentally during that half-marathon and I didn’t during my marathon.

However, I smiled and laughed A LOT this race. I had a little bit of trouble miles 15-17 and then didn’t really feel crappy again until mile 23. The course was beautiful and it was so well organized with tons of aid stations and porta-potties. And we literally could not have asked for better weather. It was truly a great day.

What went wrong with my stomach? I’m not really sure. It was a warm day out there, about 17 C, and the sun was bright and hot. I took three GU’s, two packs of shot bloks and drank A LOT of gatorade in an attempt to stay well fueled. I think I may have OVER-fueled and the sugar wreaked havoc on my stomach. I also might have been lacking in sodium considering how amazing those potato chips tasted by the end. I took water every aid station so I’m pretty sure I was well hydrated, but it’s hard to say for sure.

I’ve tweeted with a few other runners who missed their goal time as well and the general consensus was that it was a warm day and that was hard on the runners for a variety of reasons. Also, while this is considered a FAST course (lots of downhill) I would not call it a FLAT course at all. There are plenty of rollers out there to beat up your legs.

All that being said, I LOVED the course a lot. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will run it again one day. This was a brand new course for Vancouver and the organizers did an amazing job showing off the best parts of a very beautiful city. I cannot recommend it enough. Especially if you’ve never been to Vancouver and want a destination race.

I have a 4:30 in my legs and now, after this marathon, I know I have it in my mind. I will be running another marathon in 2012 (stay tuned for details!) and that 4:30 or faster goal will be at the forefront of my mind and training, whereas this time it was just to finish injury-free and have a good, fun race (which I did)!

I loved running into so many twitter/blog friends and having Eric there was the BEST THING EVER! It really was a wonderful, fun day.

A huge, huge thank you to Britt. I have never ran almost an entire race like that with someone before and I loved it. It was so great to have someone by my side to chat with and scream with and yell “WE’RE RUNNING AN F-ING MARATHON!” with while chugging up hills!

And thank you to all my readers and twitter followers. I was overwhelmed with tweets, facebook messages and texts of encouragement. They meant so much!

XO

(Several of the photos in this post – especially the ones at the start of the race – are courtesy of Lauren! Also, this post is long! Consider yourself warned )

Hi friends! I started writing this blog post from the beautiful ferry ride on yesterday morning. I miss Victoria already. What a beautiful, beautiful city. I cannot wait to go back!

So I guess you’re all waiting for the race report, hey? Sunday was such a great race day with perfect weather – overcast and about 10 C! I’m so proud of us all! Alarms were going off in our hotel room at 5:45 AM on race day and Leigh, Lisa and I bounded out of bed to get ready.

The three of us were fueled and dressed within an hour so we left to walk the two blocks to the start line around 7:00 AM. Our hotel was in the perfect location. Lauren didn’t start her marathon until 45 minutes after us but she was a good sport and got out of bed and came to the start.

Once there we had time to hang around and take some photos before the crowds of people really started rolling in.

I’m so glad Leigh french braided my hair! I wish that I had someone to do that all the time, it kept out of my face perfectly during the race.

I had been debating on my race outfit all morning and finally at the last minute I decided to send my coat back to the hotel with Lauren and just wear a t-shirt and shorts. This was a very good decision. Here we all are in our final race outfits:

Before long it was time to start running. Leigh, Lisa and I all had similar time goals so the plan was to start together and stay together as long as possible!

Mile 1 – 9:15

With around 5,000 runners this was a crowded race and we spent a lot of the first mile weaving in and out of people. It was definitely a bit mentally exhausting to start the race that way.

Mile 2 – 8:44

Around mile three we headed into Beacon Hill Park. Now, I must say, the website for Victoria marathon boasted a “flat” course but I would not call this course flat AT ALL! It had tons of rolling hills. Granted they were small hills and the highest elevation we reached was 100 metres, but it was still a lot of up and downs and I found that really hard on my legs and they got tired and sore fast.

I did a ton of speed training for this race but not a lot of hill speed training. I definitely would have benefited more from that – check out the elevation profile below to see all the up-and-downs we ran.

Mile 3 – 8:40

Mile 4 – 8:54

It was around mile 4, that we went up the first hill in the park and Lisa powered up ahead of Leigh and I. She was on fire and that was the last time we saw her until the end. She did SO awesome. Read her race report here.

Leigh and I stayed together running in front of one another or beside one another but not really talking because we were so focused on our goals (you can see Leigh just ahead of me in the photo below).

Mile 5 – 8:44

Around mile 5 we came out of the park and started running along the pacific ocean. Words and photos cannot describe how stunningly beautiful this part of the race was. It was amazing. I would highly recommend this course and would come back and run it again in a heartbeat!

Mile 6 – 9:06

Mile 7 – 8:47

At mile 6 I started playing mental games with myself. My 10K split was around 54 minutes and I started thinking “omg, I have to run SEVEN miles in an hour. I can’t do that, I can’t do that” I had to remind myself to take it one mile at a time so I started focusing on each mile individually and the goal was just to keep it under 9 minute miles.

Mile 8 – 9:08

At this point we were just zig-zagging through some residential neighbourhoods and the route was very rolling with the inclines. I was struggling and just kept telling myself to dig deep and push hard. Right before heading back out of the residential area I stopped to walk through a water station and I saw Leigh go up ahead of me. After I was done taking my fuel I sprinted to catch up with her. We then ran beside each other for a couple of miles.

Mile 9 – 8:47

Mile 10 – 9:12

We came back out along the water again at this point. It was so beautiful! Sadly I was running too hard to get a non-blurry photo

At mile 10 I turned to Leigh and said “fuck. My legs are killing me” the guy beside us was like “it’s just around the bend!” I’m thinking ha ha. I have a garmin, I know it’s another 5K! At this point my legs and the front of my quads were getting so sore that I had to drop back from Leigh and let her go.

I hit mile 10 in 1:29 and thought to myself “I have to run 5K in under 30 minutes. I can do that”

Mile 11 – 9:24

The last three miles were the hardest miles I’ve ever ran. My legs were so tired and sore and I had to dig deeper than ever before to get through them. I just kept reminding myself how MAD I would be at myself if I gave up mentally and came in at just over 2 hours. My legs were so, so tired at this point from all the little inclines and pushing so hard.

Mile 12 – 9:04

I wanted to stop SO BADLY at mile 12.5 but I forced myself to push on and reminded myself it would be over soon.

Mile 13 – 8:48

Mile 13 – 13.1 – 7:59

Final Garmin Stats: 13.24 miles / 1:58:20 / 8:57 avg pace

Final OFFICIAL results: 1:58:18, 814/3231 females, 83/277 in my age division

As soon as I crossed the finish line and saw that I’d beat my sub-2 hour goal I was ecstatic. But I came to such a sudden stop after sprinting in that I found myself stumbling around a little bit and getting dizzy. I was so, so sore from running so hard! I was immediately grabbed by a great volunteer and taken into the medic tent. They sat me down on the bed and without even being able to control it I started peeing!!!!!

I immediately stood up and was like, “omg! I need to go to the bathroom. I just peed a little!” The lady laughed and said it was fine and took me to the nearest porta-potty. I’d felt the urge to pee the last 5K or so of the race and figured I’d just over-hydrated. Apparently I really did leave it all out on the course that day because I could not control the peeing if my life depended on it!

After I got that under control I went to find Lisa and Leigh! All three of us PR’ed! What a great day! Also please notice how Lisa is glowing in the photo below and Leigh and I both look a little sick. Ha!

We all hobbled back to our hotel room to shower and eat before heading back down to watch Lauren come in. It was so fun cheering the marathoners in and Lauren completely KILLED her race! She looked so strong after 26.2 miles of running – she also PR’ed! I’ll let her tell you about it on her blog

After the marathon finished the four of us got ready and went in search of some FOOD! Then we went back to our hotel and napped for a few hours before going out to two Irish pubs for drinks and appies that night. No photos but it was a really fun last night. We definitely had something to celebrate since all four of us got great PR’s in our races.

I got one last photo of Parliament all lit up on Sunday night. I am absolutely enamored by Victoria and cannot wait to go back. Hopefully soon!

Monday morning we all said our goodbye’s after an hour long bus ride and 1.5 hour long ferry ride to get back to our cars in Vancouver. I was truly sad to say bye to these girls. This weekend was just what I needed and I had so, so, so much fun. I miss them already!

Hey guys! I got back into the trails for a run this morning and it was awesome! It’s kind of funny because last year I ran 12 miles on the Saturday (a short run at the time for marathon training) and then did this same trail race on the Sunday. Well apparently it was deja-vu for me this year because I also ran 12 miles yesterday and then did the trail race this morning! Heh.

As a result of that + an advanced power flow yoga class yesterday afternoon and a late night out last night I spent the majority of this afternoon on the couch so this race report is coming to you a little late

My trail shoes have not been used much since my big trail race in June so I busted them out of retirement for the race this morning.

My race didn’t start until 10:00 AM but I got there at 9 to pick up my package. I hung around and caught up with my friend Carly who I hadn’t seen in a long time!

It was kind of windy and cold waiting around. When it was time to start I was ready to go! From doing so many of these Dirty Feet races I have two of the blue shirts below They are awesome, light technical racing shirts!

As soon as we started I could feel how heavy my legs were from doing a hard 12-miles yesterday so I knew I was going to just take it easy and have fun.

We started out with a nice big hill to climb and then it was rolling hills with one more big one at the end for the rest of the race!

Mile 1 – 11:43

Mile 2 – 10:53

We got treated to some nice views after climbing so I suppose it was worth it

I started to get REALLY hungry around this point. I guess the bagel I had at 7:30 AM and then the apple I had at about 9:00 AM was not enough to hold me over. The aid station at mile 3 could not come soon enough. I scarfed down 1/2 a banana and some gummy bears with my water!

Mile 3 – 11:12

Mile 4 – 11:06

It was a nice mix of single-track and double-track trail but most of the course was single-track, which I loved because it feels like true trail running!

The last two miles went by fast and I felt good! There was some massive wind the last 0.5 miles or so which made it really hard to run against.

Mile 5 – 11:40

Mile 6 – 12:36

Final Garmin Stats:

5.99 miles – 1:08:59 – 11:32 pace

These races always have the best spread of food! I treated myself to two mini cupcakes, some banana bread and some delicious veggie chips afterwards!

Oh, and look who I met after the race! An 11-week old boxer puppy named Jada. I totally went up to the owner, introduced myself, told her I have a 15-week boxer puppy at home and chatted her up about boxers. I then got her contact information so we can have a boxer puppy playdate.

I feel like such a mom

I’m really glad I signed up for this race! I debated not doing it since I’m so focused on half-marathon training right now but it was SO nice to get back into the trails for a run this morning. I’ve been so focused on speed and pick-ups and nailing my paces that I forgot how good it feels to run in the trails and ignore your garmin. I didn’t listen to my iPod at all for the whole 10K race and didn’t miss it one bit!

This was my 9th race in 2011! Victoria will be my 10th and most likely my last for the year. Not a bad year for racing if you ask me!

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Question of the day: How was your weekend? Did you do any running or racing?