Negative Bunnies.

Today was my first race of the 08 season – woo! It was a nice day for it as we saw the sun in little bits here and there, but it wasn’t too warm or cold. Perfect! There was a bit of wind in my face near the finish, but not too bad. Before I started the 4.6km trail run I decided that I would be happy if I finished in under 30 minutes. My normal split these days for one kilometer is about 5:45, so this gave me almost an extra minute/km for the larger hills and more challenging terrain that exists on trail runs. My 1st km took 5:27, but it was wide open track with a lot of downhill running so I wasn’t worried that I was going too fast. The next one was 6:00 exactly, so that was ok, about what I was aiming for and I had been stuck behind some others in a single track so I couldn’t have passed anyone anyway. The 3rd kilometer took me about 6:10 and again, that was ok, about what I was supposed to be doing and there were a lot of hills and 2 water stations that slowed me down. The 4th one was slower again – about 6:15 – and I was starting to feel tired. (note all of these times are inexact!)

So now I’m thinking that I really need to giver on the last 600m to break my 30 min. because it’s all uphill and I know there’s still a stream crossing coming up. So I started looking for my negative pace bunny. I don’t believe this is a technical term, just one I use to describe those people that walk for part of the race and then as soon as I catch up to them they start running again, then I start to catch up again later when they’re walking and just as i get close they start running again. I’ve had a negative pace bunny on all four trail runs I have done. (on a side note an actual pace bunny is a person who is planning to finish at a certain time so you run with or near them to ensure that you have the right pace for the entire race to meet your goal finish time) So for my end of race runspiration I decided that I was going to catch my negative pace bunny and pass her, and I did woo!! It was a good mental game to play to keep myself pushing because I had been struggling. It also helped that with about 100m to go an older man was passing me and he took my hand and pulled me for a second and said “come on, we’re almost there” and we finished together, so that was cool too. (well ok, he still beat me, but only by a couple of steps)

My overall race time (unofficial – results not up yet) was 28:44 and I finished 17th out of 63 women aged 30-39. The 1st place woman in my group ran it in 23 min. and 2nd place was about 25 min. I can’t remember the 3rd place time. My next race is on Sunday May 4th (Star Wars day!) in Toronto – 10k all downhill!! Can’t wait to do that one with mom.