Around the Bay Road Race 30KM

The Around the Bay Road race is a bucket list race  as it prides itself on being the oldest race in North America, "older than Boston. It is a great spring race to start of the racing season or if you are planning to run a spring marathon.

This year was the first year that I ran the full 30 kilometres. In the past I have ran the 2 and 3 persons relay and had a great time in both races. The course was changed this year due to a train crossing that made runners stop last year and wait for it to pass.  With the change, it meant a few more hills.

I can't say that I've been able to train much this past winter. It has been a tough trying to find the motivation to get outside and the thought of the treadmill is just depressing. I am fortunate to be able to get away on my layovers to some warmer destinations, however with the jet lag, I am definitely not at my best. My goal at this point was to finish the race. I knew that there were going to be quite a number of hills to tackle and I just hate hills. I'm thinking that these hills will be nothing in comparison to what I may battle at the San Francisco marathon later this summer.

Elevation from my Garmin

It was perfect day to run, the temperature was 7 degrees with a light breeze and the sun was peaking through the clouds. I had driven in with my run buddy Karen and met up with our friend Richard who was running Around the Bay for the first time.

I had decided to take it easy on the race as I had not run this distance since the summer and had only done a 27km long run a few weeks prior. After reading a few race reports from previous years and looking at the map, I knew I would have to race smart to finish well.

I had decided to break the race into 3 sets of 10km and start off the race with an easy pace for the first 10km. The first 10 km was not what I had remembered as I had run the first 15 km of the race a few years ago.  There were a few more hills than I recalled and took them all in stride. I tried to keep at a 6:00 minute pace for the first 10km which I think was totally reasonable considering my lack in training. Once the crowd thinned out I was able to settle into my pace.

Once I hit the first exchange point at the 10km mark, I decided to try to pick it up a little bit as I knew it would be a tad flatter than the first 10km. I was starting to get warm as the sun was finally out and shining bright. I found this section quick relaxing as I had settled into a comfortable pace and had a beautiful view of Lake Ontario beside me up to the 17km turning point. 

Staying strong for a good finish

I knew I had to run smart as the last 10km would be the most challenging. My first ever experience with this race was running the last 10km of the race, so I knew what was ahead of me. As I was nearing the 20km mark, it was all coming back to me.  I pushed on and tried to use every downhill to my advantage as I knew there was one huge hill at the end before coming up to the 27km mark that I had seen on the drive in. I gave the hill all I had a ran up without stopping until it seemed like I was crawling to the top. When I finally made it up to the top, I knew it would be somewhat easy considering what I had just gone through. A fellow runner asked me at this point if there were any hills left and I thankfully yelled "no more hill, flat to the end". I was looking forward to seeing the Grimm reaper and running into FirstOntario Centre. With 3km left to go, I pushed with all I had.

Finish inside the Centre is the highlight of this race

I feel like I ran a fairly conservative race. I wasn't completely spent after the race and was still able to walk and joke around with my run buddy.  I now feel like I could have pushed a bit more. I'm happy that I finished. I hope to run this again next year and will have a new game plan and hopefully more training under me.

Results:

Category Place -  235/492

Gender Place - 1537/3305

10KM - 1:01:35

15KM - 1:31:17

20KM - 2:01:02

Finish - Gun time - 3:11:33:8

             Chip time - 3:02:44

Pace 6:06

Group shot and medal selfie

Great Race Swag

Thanks for reading :)

How has your race season started?  Any Personal Bests? How has winter training been for you?

Do you have any Races coming up?