On the Friday before the BMO Marathon weekend, I was extremely excited about my upcoming trip to Vancouver for many reasons. First, it’s one of the first few weekends where the weather was scheduled to be absolutely fantastic. Second, coming from Victoria, I love to visit the big city once in a while. Third, I love the positive energy at Marathon Expos. There are so many seriously excited and inspirational runners and exhibitors.
Above: A few hours after finishing the race, I decided to come back to the finish line to cheer for other runners still coming across. Here I am wearing the BMO Marathon shirt, my Public Myth zip leggings and finisher’s medal 🙂
Knowing that any kind of traveling can take some energy out of you, I wasn’t entirely sure how I would do in the marathon. Ideally, before a marathon, it’s necessary to rest, hydrate and eat as many healthy carbohydrates as possible to ensure that you have a good race. Taking the ferry, bussing for over an hour and walking more than 10 blocks in hot weather the day before a marathon are not conductive to the aforementioned (yup, I did that but it was fun).
I tried to keep my pre-race routine the same as I what I do when I’m in Victoria. I charged and reset my Garmin Forerunner 110 and put my Public Myth outfit (running shorts and racer back sports bra), Cytomax and race bib in an easy-to-find spot. I don’t like to rush around in the morning of the race. Rushing around in the morning wastes unnecessary energy and can be stressful.
I always make sure to give myself enough time to get ready for the race and make it to the start line with 10-15 minutes to spare (sometimes earlier if I have to do gear check). Usually, getting up 2-2.5 hours before the start time is good enough.
When I got to the start line, I saw hundreds of excited runners! I was thrilled to be doing my 2nd marathon. Except, for this marathon, I didn’t have 16 weeks or training. Between training for the fitness competition which was at the end of March and getting sick for a week, I had 4 weeks of actual marathon training. Advanced marathon training programs usually last 12-16 weeks and beginner programs are just over 20 weeks. Somehow, deep down I believed that no matter what happens I will finish in the 3:25-3:35 range.
In addition to trying to see how quickly I could switch from marathon training to fitness competitions and back to marathon training and how my body would react to such changes and challenges, the BMO Marathon was an opportunity for me to get another long run in as part of my Run for Their Lives training.
Given how beautiful the course is, especially the area along the Stanley Park Seawall, I’m not surprised that the BMO Vancouver Marathon is ranked a Top 10 Destination Marathon by Forbes. I don’t go to Vancouver very often, so this was an awesome opportunity for me to get a closer look at some of the most stunningly gorgeous areas of the big city.
I knew I started out too fast the moment I saw that my time was 21:30 at the 5K mark. However, because I felt good, I didn’t think to slow down much. I crossed the 13.3km mark and my time was 1:02, which is just a little bit slower than my Cedar 12K pace. Still, at that point, I felt very comfortable.
However, when I got to the halfway point and realized that I finished the first half in 1:38:45, I felt extremely excited. First, it’s 45 seconds slower than my best half marathon time. Second, I knew that if I kept that same pace for the rest of the race, then I would be finishing under 3:20. I was sure I went too fast, but I didn’t want to think that later on I would be facing the harsh reality of what happens when you start a really long race too fast.
When I didn’t hit the wall 30K, I was almost 100% sure that I was on my way to a personal best. I was thinking: “allright, it’s an easy 12K from here”. Well, not so much. At 37k, I hit the wall and my legs did not move as fast as I wanted them to. I also ran out of Cytomax. The good news was, I only had 5k left in the race. The bad news- a 5K towards the end of a marathon can take a long time to finish, which means that a PR was at stake.
Luckily for me, the cheering crowds which lined the streets and the vibrant city scenery made the last 5k feel better. When I saw the finish line just 200m away, I sprinted as fast as I could.
According to the results on Sportstats, I finished in 3:31:27 (avg. pace 5:01 min per km), which is not bad given the heat and my earlier pacing error. It’s a few minutes slower than my best time, but I know that I gave it a good effort and overall I think that I still had a pretty good race.
I finished 398th/3978 (in the top ~10% of finishers), 71st/2145 women (top 3.3% in my gender) and 2nd out of 140 in my age group (good enough for an age category award). Since my goal was to either place top 3 in my age group or run a personal best time, I was happy with the results. 🙂
A HUGE congratulations to Thomas Omwenga for winning the entire race and Lucy Njeri for being the first woman to cross the finish line!
Finishing this race is proof that I can train for both fitness competitions and marathons in a 15 week period. My experiment proved successful.
I’m currently not planning on doing any more races until after Run for Their Lives. I’m also signed up for the Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon this fall.