It's been awhile since I have posted and these race reports are long overdue (at least the St. Pats 5K one). As you may or may not know my running was sidelined after a 25km run at the end of February...a Family Day run I will not forget...awesome and agonizing run at the same time! Due to running that distance with a "stuck fibula" caused inflammation in my knee. My chiro explained to me that the IT band rubs over a fat pad that sits on top of the head of the fibula. This inflammation was felt during swimming, biking and running. Thanks to constant care from my chiro and RMT I was able to keep cycling and swimming, but not able to run or do weights. Starting the week of March 9th I slowly started running again, 15mins, day off, 20 mines, day off, ...etc. March 16th I did a 30min run with no pain so my coach decided I should run the St. Pats 5K race...since I was already registered (I had planned to run it slow and with Rikki). He told me hold 4min/km...and in my mind I was thinking (WHAT!?! My PB is only a 19:27..so basically I need to race it). Come race day I was feeling OK, but highly doubted I could hold 4min/km since I had only run 4 times in the past month (2hrs total) and all those runs were at 5min/km pace! Anyway, the race started and all these women past me at the start. Oh well, I thought, this is expected...and I kept a pace that was just below what I thought was 5km effort (HR of abour 175bpm). At the 1km mark I looked down at my split...WOW-3:40! And it was an easy 3:40...I kept up that just below 5km effort (my GPS watch was going a bit crazy at this point...saying I was on 2:22/km pace. ya, right!) and started to pass a few women. At the 2.5km turnaround I passed some YorkU track runners. That was when I picked up my pace to actual 5K race effort. No way was I letting them re-pass me. GPS watch was still going crazy for the rest of the race, so I just tried to keep my pace up. I kept passing people throughout the rest of the race...ya, I'm definitely an endurance runner! Not going to lie, the last 500m of the race I was definitely feeling the lack of training and my heart rate was soaring (into the 190s!), but soon I was passed the finish line in a new PB of 18:49!!! woohoo...with NO INTENSITY TRAINING! this was a good start to the season for sure. The only problem was that I would have to tell Adam that I had not followed his training plan AGAIN. Shoot.
OK, fast forward to the end of March...Master's Swimming Provincials. A new challenge was ahead: PB in the 1500m, 800m and 200m free...first race: lead-off in the 4x200m Free relay...time: 2:25:29! Woohoo new PB and a silver medal in the relay.,,despite Chris feeling less than stellar. Awesome start. 1500m of 19:05.50 ... a PB by 22 seconds. Sweet!!! And I had an awesome cheering squad of Adam, Faye and her boyfriend, Mamma, Papa, Sara, Kevin (coach of Thor Multisport)! On Sunday I raced the 200m free (2:26), 50m free in the medley relay (32.75s-would you believe that's also a PB?!) and 800m free (10:01.03) beating my old time by 24 seconds. I credit my best times mostly to my coach, Adam Johnston. His advice (high elbow catch!) and training program were what enabled my to post these best times. Also helping me along the way: Linda and Byron from the U of T Varsity Team, Shareen and Mike from Granite Masters. Thanks for everything!!
I also wanted to mention some other highlights from the meet: Katie Osbourne won something like 9 medals (I think all were gold for her individual events), the 4x50 mixed medley relay (Sean, Henry, Sue, Katie) were 0.50 seconds of a record! Andrea St. Jules rocked the 100 and 200fly and beat her seed time significantly! Mike swam a 1:05 100m fly (gold medal) after literally arriving at the pool deck 3 heats before his race, still in his jeans and with no suit on. Sean swam a 30s 50m backstroke, beating his time from his last provincials by a second (this is HUGE in a 50m race!). Mel swam 20:50 in the 1500, which is almost as fast as her pre-2nd baby swim in London 2 years ago...she also had many other fast swims and medals! Karen swam to bronze in the 50fly, silver in the 50 and 100 back, 200 fly and and gold in the 100fly and 200 back. How many medals was that?! Awesome. Other medallists were Chris, Kelly, Jon, Mark, Henry, Sarah F, Nicola Tory, Shareen and sorry if I forgot anyone else!!!
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