Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up in Vancouver, probably eat a little something and have a shot of espresso, gear up and then head down to Queen Elizabeth Park to finish what I had hoped to do last year before everything caved in on itself.
Crossing the Vancouver Marathon start line shortly before 9am (the gun is at 8:30am but we go in waves and I’ll be among the middle wave) feeling ready to run will be a substantial improvement over last year’s sickly start and DNF.
Passing West 49th and Maple, where I had to drop out last year, will be a win in itself… let alone every other milestone I slowly (and, as the race progresses, more painfully) pass en route to circuiting Stanley Park and eventually crossing the uphill finish line on Pender near Coal Harbour.
I admit I came back this year in large part to close the book on unfinished business from last year. How exactly I do in this year’s race, other than finishing strong, is not at all a concern to me. It could take 5-6 hours for all I care (though I’d like to imagine I’m at least trained to run a bit better than that). Crossing the finish line is what matters.
Even if work and health hadn’t turned upside down at the worst possible time, I look back in hindsight and think it would not have gone well anyway. In fact, getting derailed might have saved me. The start of the race was a dreadfully warm 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I stumbled on my pre-race meal planning and execution, and probably ran around town a bit too much in the final two days before the race. I also was more aggressive in my overall race pace goal than I should have been.
Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out even if work was fine, I had slept okay on the trip, and I hadn’t gotten ill. Perhaps I’d have run out too hard, and that combined with the heat could have sunk me anymore.
So, never minding it’s in the past, I can’t preoccupy myself too much over what went wrong. Objectively I can see a variety of factors last year that would have worked against me given where I was at. It probably wasn’t meant to be either way.
This year, even without as much of the speed and tempo work as I would have liked, even losing the better part of two weeks late in training to illness… I feel a lot better prepared, even if I didn’t log any 50+ mile weeks or as many 20 milers as I’d like.
I focused more on developing aerobic endurance in longer regular runs, longer haul runs. I ran a lot stronger late in my long runs this time. And though I didn’t plan it, having to run some key later runs into the wind also helped develop extra neuromuscular fitness and hone my form.
There’s a lot I’ll still want to work on next time around, and I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. For now, the only bridge I plan to cross is the Burrard Bridge about 30km into tomorrow’s marathon.
Tomorrow, the goal is to finish the Revenge Tour, and the Vancouver Marathon. Talk again soon.
