Sporting Life 10km

Another weekend, another race. Rather than a triathlon I raced in the Sporting Life 10km. I’ve never actually ran 10km without swimming and biking before hand, so I was pretty excited to see how fast I could push myself on fresh legs.

I got the race about an hour early to get in a good warm up. It was so much fun getting to see a bunch of my friends and coworkers before the start (shout out to ex-Krono Kyle who crushed it and the coolest bosses ever Connor and Jason).

Side note - What is up with these winds and cold temperatures? It was about 12 degrees at the start with chilly winds. Unlike Wasa, I was prepared this time around and wore a winter coat and sweat pants up until the start of the race to stay warm.

I seeded myself in wave one, close to the line behind some super speedy runners. The gun went off and I got way too excited. About 500m into the race I realized I was only a couple meters behind Jessica O’Connell aka Olympian track superstar. I slowed myself down and ended up running with a couple of guys feeling fairly comfortable. We cruised down 17th and turned left onto 37th. The headwind on this section sucked. Have I mentioned how much I hate gusty cold winds yet?

The course had a lot of long, gentle downhills with a couple short uphills. The guys would begin to pull away on the downhill stretches and then I would easily catch back up/overtake them on the baby hills. Running fast uphill made me think about how pumped I am to be returning to collegiate x-country running in the fall for Augustana.

Our next turn was onto Bow Trail. Shortly after turning, we hit the 5km mark. I glanced at my watch and saw I was at 19:20 (!!). This was my first time ever breaking 20min for a 5km so I quickly lapped my watch to save it – unfortunately instead of hitting the lap button I hit the pause button. I also tend to never look at my watch in races so I didn’t realize this until after I finished.

Back to the race and the final 5km. I was hurting but all things considered feeling somewhat strong still. I took the first couple of kilometers fairly hard, hoping I could just hang on for the finish. I knew that the aid station was at 8km and focused entirely on getting to this marker.

As soon as I passed the aid station I started to hit the wall – the lovely point in the race where every sensation is exaggerated times a million - every little baby incline felt like a mountain, the wind felt like a tornado.

Running on the road downtown was sweet – we were able to run down the entire stretch disregarding traffic signs and enjoying the view of all the buildings. The major downside – seeing the street signs (still in the teens) and knowing the finish wasn’t until after Center Street. The countdown was rough and it felt like each intersection was further spaced out than the previous. Around 3rd Street I attempted to pick up my pace (definitely picked up effort, pretty sure pace was unaffected). I got to Centre Street and was pumped, expecting to see the finish chute. Nope. I thought for sure when I made the left turn after Center I would see the finish chute. Nope. Finally, after making a right hand turn into Olympic Plaza Park, I saw the finish chute. As I had accidentally paused my watch earlier in the race I wasn’t too sure what my elapsed time was. I had still been monitoring my pace and based on math (done in my head while severely deprived of oxygen) I assumed breaking 40min was out of my reach. As I rounded the corner I glanced at the digital clock beside the chute – it was still in the 39s. I could maybe still do it. I attempted to sprint to the finish – at this point the tank was empty and only pure adrenaline was keeping me in motion. I collapsed across the finish line (literally – I fell onto all fours, attempted to stand up and then fell back onto my butt). Official time: 40:07. So close. Not going to lie – it stung a little bit.

What hurt more was my body. It felt like every muscle in both of my legs had seized. I hobbled over to the finish line to watch my coworkers finish. Huge congrats to Connor for finishing second out of the Market Mall employees. According to his watch the course was slightly over 10km (dear course officials – why??).

Anywho, I’m super happy with the result but ready to get back to triathlon races. Next up – Heart of the Rockies in Invermere. If anyone needs to get ahold of me in the next three weeks I’ll be on the road and trails training my little heart out in preparation for this beast of a race.