Montreal Oasis Marathon – Race Report

I had a pretty good 10k race in Montreal today. I held back a little more than I could have / should have but I am pleased. I got into a sprinting match with another dude in the last 400m. I have to admit that it was fun. I was right on his heels and he knew it. As soon as we crossed the finish line he turned around and high-fived me. It was kinda cool. Dude, if you are reading this, thanks! I often feel like I am not competitive enough for this sport but that little bit of excitement made me think otherwise.

My chip time was 42:22 and I placed 8th (out of 233) in my Category (males 40-49), 53rd (out of 1959) in my Gender and 58th (out of 5411) Overall.

This morning I got up at 5:45am so I would have plenty of time to wake up and get myself to the race.
For breakfast I ate:

  • Big glass of water
  • 4 Extreme Endurance
  • 2 small cups of (terrible hotel) coffee
  • 1 walnut oatmeal Cliff Bar
  • 1 large banana

At about 7:00am I took the subway to the starting area, checked my bag and wandered around, gently warming up and using the porta-potties a couple times.

15 minutes before the start I had 1 Gu Roctane (cherry lime flavour) with a couple gulps of water.

5 minutes before the start I took my place at the very front of the 40-50 minute area. As it turns out I could have been in the 30-40 minute area – a lot of folks don’t seem to know their pace very well.

I followed the Coaches directions and started off slower (4:20-ish) and tried to speed up with every km. This is what I ended up doing:
1km 4:24
2km 4:16
3km 4:20
4km 4:13
5km 4:14
6km 4:10
7km 4:16
8km 4:18
9km 4:07
10km 3:54
I slowed myself down a little around 7km because I was afraid I would burn out and not be able to push at the finish – I probably didn’t need to slow down.
The full Garmin report is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/116932973

It was a fun race. At no point did I feel like I needed to walk and the negative voices in my head (mostly) stayed away. I have never passed so many people in a race before and it was pretty darn good feeling.

When I got back to the hotel I took a shower, had a protein shake and 3 fish oil capsules. Later I took 7Systems and later still I took 4 more Extreme Endurance. I also had a couple celebratory beers and a big bowl of poutine – I am in Montreal, I kind of had to! Vive le Québec!

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