Mississauga Marathon - Attacked by The Beast

It was cool, sunny, morning. The weather forecast was predicting rain just a few days ago. I had to wake up at 4:15 a.m. for pre race breakfast. Later short warm up, sport drinks, banana, sport gel. I arrived with Beata and Robert, both with cameras. In the excitement of my first marathon attempt they were focused solely on documentation, taking plenty of pictures of myself and none of each other.


7:30 a.m. on the start line Hazel McCallion, 86 years old, mayor of Mississauga and race director Joe Hewitt - I swim with him twice a week in the Aldershot pool. 4200+ participating in the Half Marathon and 1300+ in the Marathon. I never run anything longer than 36 km before. It will be exciting adventure.





I have been training for this race since January. I had a good training program. I was quite disciplined to execute it without major problems. I have planed my pacing strategy for many weeks. In the race excitement I couldn't slow down at the beginning. I had tremendous training sessions in the last week and I tough that I could bank a few minutes for the unknown ahead. I felt great. I was flying the downhills, not slowing much on the uphills. I was slightly surprised that this race is more hilly than it seemed from the elevation profile I have studied before the race.

I was running close to a runner number 909 since at least 5K mark as I discovered later from photos. I was 'using' him later (20-30K ) on the windy part of the race as a wind buffer He was behind me a few times also.



As I wrote before I have been planning this race for a while. The profile seems to show mostly the downhill course, but although the net profile is downhill, those uphills between 15-20 km felt hard, as it was getting warmer with sun rising higher onto the sky. I have reached 20th kilometer at 1:38:13, 40 seconds faster than planned , although tired after the 5 km long uphill. I wasn't concern at all. All my important races so far 5K, 10K and Half Marathon were following the same pattern - I would start very fast and will struggle to survive in the last few kilometers.



I slowed down a little on 20-30 km part. It become very windy, but clouds moved over and it was a great cooling effect. I was still running close to runner #909. I hit 30K mark exactly as planned at 2:28:32, I lost my 40 second buffer.



A few minutes after I passed 30K mark the shoe of strength was attached to the post on the side of the road. Runner #909 made an attempt to touch it, but he didn't. I was running behind and decided to step on the grass and touch it for a better luck. Than in the spirit of true sportsmanship I highfived this freshly received charm with this unknown runner. He smiled. I think that he didn't share it with me - he took it all Starting from this moment I was no longer running with runner #909. He started to slowly drift away from me into the finish line direction. He has finished 5 minutes ahead of me




Immediately after the race I thought that 30 km uphill was the tough, turning point of my race. This is the one highlighted on my graph. After comparing my data with the map I know now that it was at the end of 34 km and at the beginning of 35 km. It was my toughest uphill on the course. I had a side stitch. This was something new for myself, even during my hardest runs I didn't have such problems. I inhaled while pushing out the stomach, and on the exhale, relaxed the stomach muscles. It helped. Around this time I started to call this marathon The Beast, but it wasn't the worse that had happened that day.





As I passed 32K mark I remembered interview with Lance Armstrong, world class cyclist, who run a few marathons. He said that 20 miles is just a half of the marathon. 20 miles equals about 32 kilometers. I wasn't yet sure that Lance was right, but I was about to find out. I knew that it will not be easy and I will have to push hard from this point on. I was almost 2 minutes behind my schedule after this uphill. This was the part of the race on which I run last year 10 km race. I knew that there won't be any hard hills and I was hoping to recover lost time. The Beast had different plans. It throw at me something new - a body malfunction. Around 36 km mark my right foot started involuntary curls. It was kind of a cramp, I think.

It wasn't something painful. It was completely new and unexpected and it was uncomfortable for sure. I had to fight hard to keep my foot flat Once I managed to stop it the beast attacked my other foot. It was throwing this curly thing at me until the end of the race.

I think around 39 km the beast added something new - cramping of my left calf - this was painful. For the rest of the race I was alternating between walking and running, although it seemed more like I was doing it barefoot on the broken glass. I heard people were cheering others with the "looking good' phrase. I don't think that there was one soul aiming it at me. I had pain painted all over my face. All I could hear was their lies "almost there"




I was able to finish. I couldn't recover lost time. I lost much more on the last 3 km. Totally I was 10 minutes behind my planned goal time.






Goal time: 3:30:00
Chip time: 3:40:45

Results

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