This was my second year doing the Sporting Life 10k and I was excited to be back. It’s a lovely downhill course down Yonge Street that nearly guarantees you a new personal best. I had a few odds stacks against me, but I kind of hoped I could somehow bust out a new personal best (pb) regardless.
With an 8 am start time, this race is slightly awkward to get to since the subway doesn’t actually open till 9 am on Sundays in Toronto. I hopped in a cab to get up to the starting zone and met up with Jenn from A Beautiful Zen who was also running the race. Hooray for beauty bloggers running races! I was glad to have the company before the start because waiting for your corral to start by yourself can be especially boring.
I had signed up for the 50-55 minute corral months ago. This was… ambitious. My time last year on this course had been around 56:20, and my all time personal best was around 55:10 (Toronto Island 10k). I had expected to train a bit better throughout the winter months in order to get under 55 minutes, but I knew I hadn’t done a good enough job by the time race day hit.
As it stands though, corrals are determined by yourself, and no one else. Some people sign up for the faster corrals (sub 50 minutes) who don’t even have a hope in hell of completing the race in under an hour and a half, so it’s a bit frustrating at times. (Which leads me to an upcoming post I’m going to make to vent out my frustrations on racing etiquette…)
ANYWAY. My corral started out around 8:20 and it was… HOT. Hot, humid and just all around nasty feeling. My first 2k were fine, but there’s that nasty slight uphill around the 2.5k mark that got me last year and it got me again this year. It just feels so unexpected to suddenly be climbing in such predominantly downhill race.
My husband was waiting, camera in hand, at the 5.5k mark at the intersection of Yonge and Wellesley. It’s actually a rather emotional experience to see him while racing, but it’s a good one. Unfortunately, by the time I saw him, I knew this wasn’t going to be a good race. My 5k split time was just over 28 minutes and I ALWAYS slow down in the second half of the race, so I knew I was going to be well over 56 minutes for a finishing time. Ugh.
Unfortunately, although I wasn’t feeling especially terrible despite the disgusting humidity and heat, I just couldn’t pull it out to run any faster. The extra ten pounds I’ve been carrying on my frame since Christmas just haven’t fallen off and it was definitely causing me to slow down a little bit.
I finished with a disappointing 58:53. Roughly 3:45 slower than my best 10k and 2:30 slower from last year’s race. It also feels especially weird that I turned out such a poor race when my 5k in March was such a good one!
Oddly, despite my time being significantly worse than last year, I actually MOVED UP in the ranks. How weird is that? Last year I was in the top 25% for both my gender and category placement, but this time I clocked in around the top 21%. Additionally, I finished in the top 30% overall, whereas last year I was in the top 36%. This has given me some much needed perspective! While my race time might have been highly disappointing to me, I can see that other people struggled on the course this year, and I’m pretty happy that I moved up in placement compared to last year!
In the end though… I’m not happy at all, and it’s given me the push I need to really up the ante with my training. I can no longer just “go for a run” really – I have to be focused on tempo runs and intervals which aren’t fun, but seem to be necessary for improving my speed.
Race Summary
- Finish Time: 58:53
- Pace: 5:53 per kilometer
- Overall placement: 7754/25802
- Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 520/2435
- Gender placement (F): 3158/14963