Believe in the System!

In order to tune up for my ½ marathon coming up in 2 weeks from today, ‘coach’ had me sign up for a 10km charity race on Saturday, May 9^th called “Run for Kenya.” It was being put on by a school in Kanata, with proceeds going to a girl’s school in Kenya. There wasn’t going to be numbers or chips, but that didn’t matter. ‘Coach’ had a game plan for me: run the 1^st 5km at half marathon pace (~4:40-4:45) and then at the ½ way point, pick up my foot speed. Then at 42mins, he wanted me to go all out. He has been thinking lately that I have a problem putting everything out on the table during a race; he thinks that I hold back (hold back from what; excruciating agony of ripping your muscles to shreds? Maybe I am guilty as charged :S)  I had done a track workout earlier in the week and had done a lap at 3:57 pace, so he really wanted to see what I had in me.

The race was to start at 9:30 so we piled our bikes in the car and drove to Kanata Saturday morning. As we all know, African’s don’t exactly run on time like we North American’s like to, so the Kenyan dignitary was about 30 minutes late to send us off with a ‘1,2, 3, GO’ in Swahili. So off we went. The 5k and the 10k were both being run together so  for the 1^st 1k or so, there was a tiny rat-tailed kid that kept yo-yoing with me (he seemed to think we were racing…I was just putting along at my own speed ) . I managed to keep a steady nice pace for the 1^st half,  and at the ½ way point I was the top female, and about 6^th overall.  After the turnaround, I still had a lot left in the tank.  All along the route, people were cheering for me as the ‘1^st female’…never has  that ever happened to me before! I  passed 1 man on the way back to the finish, and was managing to keep up my speed until about 1km left. I really started to feel the burn then and slowed down slightly, but still managed my ‘2 minutes left’ kick. I crossed the finish in 44:16, a PB by about 7 minutes and I was the first woman overall! My reward? ‘coach’ says 2 laps around the track…Woohoo!! By then it was raining quite hard so we didn’t get the post-race ride in that we had planned…Oh well!! 

So I guess I am faster than I thought I was. As I have been told lately, I have to believe in the system, that it will get me to where I want to be when race day comes.  I think I believe now!