On Saturday, May 25, I headed over to Vancouver
Island for the Q's Victoria Run Series Meet # 2. It was at the University of
Victoria this time, and there were some young people who came over from the
Lower Mainland to compete, but I think I was the only "seasoned" runner who did
so.
The meet started at 6:30 PM, and this time they ran
the races from longest to shortest, meaning the 3000 meters was the inaugural
event. The women ran first, and the race director filmed it riding along the
track on his bike.
They've posted a film of it here: http://victoriarunseries.com/womens-3000m-race-meet-2/ .
Next
I watched Gary Duncan, Frank Towler and the others run it, skipping the 3000
myself.
I was running the Shaughnessy 8K at 8:30 the next morning, and I figured
that it would probably have been one race too many. Next up was the 1500 open
race, and I don't remember much about it and the subsequent 800 meters event,
except that I PBed in the first distance, but didn't do as well in the shorter
race. It's much better running the shorter distances first and progressing to
the longer ones than the other way around, at least for me anyway.
There were a couple of races to go after my last
one, the (fast) men's and women's 800, but I had to go catch the last
ferry leaving at 9 PM, so I said goodbye to Frank and Gary and headed for the
terminal.
For a report of the meet highlighting the faster
performers go to:
I was 9 of 14 overall and 2 of 2 in my age group in
the 800, with a time of 2:57.7, and 7 of 15 OA, 2 of 2 AG, with a PB of 5:44.8
in the 1500.
The next morning brought the Shaughnessy 8K race,
and it was a little cool and cloudy as we started off at 8:30 AM on the road
in front of the Kerrisdale Arena. After about 200 meters we turned right down a
side street and began our ascent of THE HILL. 300 meters or so later we reached
the crest, and after awhile my legs recovered and I began to pick up speed
again.
Wending our way along the neighborhood streets, we soon reached another
incline, a few hundred meters long but much less steep than the first one. The
course was a partial double loop, skipping THE HILL on the second go-around,
which nobody complained about.
With less than a kilometer to go we came to an intersection with a lot of
marshals, and I kept going straight as nobody told me to do anything else. I
noticed fairly quickly that I could only see very slow runners and walkers in
front of me, and I looked back and all the runners had turned right and were
heading down that road. I ran back but the fellow who had been only about 10
meters in front of me before was now at least 100 meters ahead.
A few hundred meters later we were heading down the road leading to the turn
to the finish. I had passed Bill Chang a couple of kilometers into the race, but I could hear his distinctive breathing behind me as I now ran down THE HILL.
We reached the bottom and rounded the corner for the last 200 meter dash to the
finish, and I pretended that I was finishing my 800 meter race the night
before, and ran as fast as I could until I was over the line.
Jimmy Hinze from my club greeted me, he was there as a BC Athletics rep
helping out with the race, and he showed me a picture that he took as I went
across the finish line, and said he'd send it to me. We talked a bit and greeted
some more finishers and then I headed over to get some food.
They had various fresh bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter, and
jam to spread on them, delicious soft chocolate chip cookies, 2-packs of hard
boiled eggs, and bananas & oranges, plus chocolate milk, water, smoothie drinks, and coffee.
They had the usual large amount of draw prizes, but I failed to win
anything this time around. The awards were presented, and Bill Chang had told me
before the race that he'd seen Mark Bennett, Tim Smith, and Larry Nightingale there already, so we both knew we weren't going to be winning any medals today. I
ended up 6th out of 19 in our age group and 57th overall out of 283, with a time
of 35:10, while Bill was 7th in our AG, and Arnold ended up 12th. http://www.startlinetiming.com/races/2013/shaughnessy/oall8.txt
With the festivities over it was time to say our goodbyes until the next
race, so I bid Arnold, Vas and Bill adieu and headed home.
Here's a further report on the race:
http://www.lgrr.com/pdfs/SHAUGHNESSY%202013%20report.pdf
http://www.lgrr.com/pdfs/SHAUGHNESSY%202013%20report.pdf
Many photos were also taken, three different sets in fact:
My next race was the Giant's Head Run 5.4K race in Summerland at 6 PM on
June 1st.
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