Midsummer Night's 30k Race Recap

This race was 2 weeks after the San Francisco Marathon so I didn't have much of a downtown to rest between races.

This was going to be the first year that would be runinng the 30km distance on the original course as it was moved last year due to construction in the area. 

I did not have the chance to run much as I was still recovering from the hills of San Francisco, so I decided just to take it easy and see what would happen 

The weather had been great right up until race day. This race is held at dusk. I has woken up to rain in the morning and was praying that it would let up for the race. 

The other issue for me was to figure out what to eat during the day so that i would not have any stomach upset during the race. I decided to have a bagel for breakfast and stuck with smoothies full of greens for the remainder of the day. 

The sky was overcast as I drove down with my run buddy. We had packed garbage bags just in case we would be running in the rain. It started to spit as I pulled into the parking lot. We climbed into the shuttle bus along with the rest of the runners and headed to the start area. 

It was around 10 degrees and gloomy which made it seem much closer especially for an August weekend. I made a raincoat for myself with my garbage bag and huddled under a tent and waited for the start.

Hiding out and staying dry

I hadn't given to much thought to a goal finish as I wasn't sure how my legs would hold up with the little running that I had done. I was hoping for a 3 hour finish and my run buddy reminded me that I had finished under 3 last year so I decided to follow the 2:45 pace bunny.  

It was still raining as the race was about to start. I posed for last minute photos with my run buddy, wished her a good race and off we went.

At the start line

I ran the first few kilometres with the garbage bag on me because I was frozen. The rain was starting to stop so I ended up taking it off around 3km. 

I was able to keep with with the pace bunny for most of the race. There was still some construction to run around but the course was quite lovely. We ran out to the Leslie Split which has beautiful views of Lake Ontario and the skyline of Toronto.  We were a fairly small group, about 5 of us circling the pace bunny. Thank goodness for my music as we were all pretty quiet and just kept to ourselves. I guess you can say we were focused. I had decided to run this race with my Nathan Hydration belt which gave me the freedom to not have to stop at the water stations until the later part of the race. I only ended up taking one gel at the 18km mark. I was feeling good, but knew that I should probably take it so that I would not bonk.  The sky was quickly turning to dusk as I was nearing the 25k. It turned out to be a really nice night for a run. As I was nearing the 28km mark, my right side decided to cramp up. I'm no sure what happened. I was doing so well. Was it the gel or was I dehydrated? I slowed my pace down a bit and fell back from my "group". I was sad, but I knew I was going to do whatever it took to finish strong.

Coming into the finish line

I looked down at my watch and knew that if I pushed I would be able to finish under 2:50. I looked ahead to try to chase down whoever I could and thought about all the 400m tempo runs and gave it all I had. 

Showing off my medal

This is one of my favourite races to run as it's a nice small race. It is very well organized and the funds raised go towards a wonderful charity. The swag is also fantastic, a great shirt and a super cool medal.

So here are my final stats - 

Time - 2:49:12.8

Chip Time - 2:48:40.8

Pace - 5:38

21km Split - 1:56:2.8

Category Place - 32/108

Gender Place - 87/297