W/E August 19th - Edmonton Marathon 1st - 2:36:40 - Rough

What a weekend. In fact I feel like its still going as I'm riding the Greyhound to Vernon from Kamloops to pick up a truck I looked at a couple weeks ago.

It all started on Thursday I suppose, bussing to Kamloops to stay with my cuz on account of having a job interview with the Secwepemc Health Directors Hub out on the rez. In short it has to do with coordinating the 17 Secwepemc communities in the transition of health authority for First Nations from the Feds and province to the First Nations Health Authority. A major undertaking. The interview went well and was offered the position later that day. So I'm stoked about that. After the interview I picked up the rental car and my travel companion and hit the road. Oh, I also finally heard from the owner of a truck I wanted to make an offer to, which also worked out, hence my current situation.

The race itself was a tough one for me because some problems I have long since conquered reared their ugly head but I'll start from the gun, or just prior to. I though we had left with lots of time to get to the race but were stuck in traffic turning into the parking lot which resulted in me getting to the start line just in time for the 5...4...3...2...1. Just enough time to check out the competition and then we were off.

I started out real easy being that I just jumped out of the car and watched to see what kind of pace we were going to run. Last year I ran with Brendan Lunty but this time around two guys I have never seen before headed out a bit quicker but not so fast that I thought they would be unable to sustain it. So, a threat. I decided I better keep an eye on them so ran a little quicker than I normally would but had nothing to worry about. Normally I'll get warmed up and settle into a pace around 7-8k and it turned out this pace was a bit quicker than these guys eventually passing them probably around 10k an then maybe 17-18k. As it tuned out they were running beyond themselves and I think both blew up.

Prior to passing them I had discovered my guts were going to become a big problem and every time I put a gel or water down, from about 10k onward I felt like I'd have to make a pit stop. I didn't want to however, because I still wasn't sure about the leader. So anyway I toughed it out till I passed him, pushed for another 5k and ended up putting a sizable gap into him. At around 23k I had suffered enough and pulled into the port-a-john. Needless to say it's a bit comical to pull off at a water stop and have the lead police motorcyclist and two lead cyclists wait for you outside the John!

Fortunately I had a big lead and even after the stop the second place guy was nowhere to be seen. So off I went. The rest of the race was fairly uneventful until about 32k when I heard the new second and third were battling it out. This is not so much something you want to hear because it's much harder to fight when you are out in no-man's-land. I picked it up anyway but that didn't last long with the heat and dehydration getting to me. In the end I was able to pull it off and come out a couple minutes ahead of Brendan for the win. Not fast and not pretty but a win :)

Now. What to do? Earlier last week as I recovered from my 40mi suffer fest I decided it wasn't a reasonable expectation to get fit enough to run fast at the Steve King Classic 100k. I was really looking forward to this but I just have too much on my plate to make a good go of it so I'm going to cancel that plan but keep the option in the back of my mind of going last minute and running just to get a 100k under my belt. The plan now will to get some solid training in before Victoria and try to run fast there.

A job, a win, a vehicle and some great visiting with friends made for an excellent unofficial long weekend. The summer is closing out great and the fall looks good and busy just the way I like it!

Mon - 70mins
Tue - off very tired
Wed - 2 x p-line hill (85, 91) some bounce but still tired + core
thurs - 50 mins feel okay
Fri - off, got a job! Drove to Edmonton
Sat - 20 mins jog
Sun - 26.2 mi - 2:36:40