Around the Bay 30km Race
March 29, 2009
Hamilton, ON
Well it’s one of the early races of the year and it’s usually, finally warm enough to race it reasonably hard. Everyone hopes for no precipitation, light wind and dry roads; this race was 0/3 on these items. It was a steady rain, a stiff wind and of course VERY wet roads. Oh well, at least it’s not snow!
A day or so prior to the race, my coach reminded me this was only a training or tune-up race for my full marathon in Buffalo on May 24th. He wants me to run 4:10/km for the first 20km. After that, he tells me, I have the green light to light it up a bit.
Well, the gun starts the race and I’m feeling pretty good though every part of me is cold and wet. I clip off the first 5km in 2o minutes even, as I wasn’t watching my pace. I’m surprised as it felt really comfortable. At 10km, I’m at 40 minutes; coach won’t be happy with this but man, I’m really on for this race.
Finally by the time I get to the 25km marker, I’m actually still on 4 minute pace. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with this race, 3 things you should know are: it’s the oldest road race in North America (3 years older than Boston), it has graduated medals based on finishing (clock time), and it’s 20km flat with 7km of hills with one really large one just before 3km remaining. Of course, 4:00/km is on pace for gold, but I’m also hearing my coach’s voice in my head telling me to run disciplined and save my big race for Buffalo. I decide to shut it down and conserve some energyfor my main race. I come through in a clock time of 2:03:10 and a chip time of 2:02:58. This is good for my 2nd silver finisher’s medal and a 7 minute personal best which is pretty good but man I really wanted to go for gold. On the up side, it really boosted my confidence for next year as I know I definitely had enough to do it this year.
At the finish I bumped into Anthony Davey from Team RF and we chatted for a few minutes. He was so close again this year but missed the gold finishing less than 1 minute over the 2 hour point. Anthony, next year we’ll both do it as this will be one of my goals.
Everyone must do this race at least once. N ot only is it a great spring marathon tune-up race but it’s also steep with tradition that leads back to the days when these were called “foot races”.
Keep runnin’,
Mike Bosch, Team Running Free Athlete
Hey Mike,nice report,thanks for the mention and you’re right about next year man!
Cheers