The first thing that happened was Rum Runners Relay. This is a 110km 10 leg relay race along Nova Scotia's South Shore to Lunenburg. This year I had to switch teams as my regular team wasn't running. Now I was on Oxford @ 8's team Classic Rummies. This team included some really great local runners and even 800m specialist and Olympian Geoff Harris.
My leg this year was Leg 2. A mere 2 km from my front door, this was a great chance to run a familiar route that I have gone over many times. It is 8.3km long and for the most part flat. I met with my team mates for the first time and got bibbed up (I actually wore 2 of our team bibs in case the next leg's runner couldn't find our captain).
Now I must say I was still a little nervous as my knee and IT band aren't great. I had rested it all week and did my physio, but went in with a big question mark.
From the start my plan was to head out and try to hang with the top guys and see how things went. Immediately a group of three of us broke clear and took off. The pace wasn't too bad, my knee felt fine (a little stiff) so I decided to hang in there. Eventually the second place runner started to drift back and when the gap to the leader hit about 10 feet I decided I better bridge that gap. By 2 km it was a two person battle. Not wanting to push my knee any harder than I had to, I decided to hang with the leader. I knew nothing about him as a racer but he was running fine and not breathing heavy so a challenge early on didn't seem like a good idea. And truthfully a second place finish considering my problems would have been just fine.
We stayed that way until about the 7.5 km mark. The pace had started to drift lower a bit and soon the finish line was in sight off in the distance. Not wanting to hit an all out sprint near the line, I decided to pick up the pace and see what I could do (also we had a large lead over third by now so it was worth the risk). I pushed off and headed to the finish. I guess ultimately the leader had no gas left in the tank as I surged ahead and took the win. My first at a Rum Runners relay and quite frankly unexpected. I knew I had some speed but a win is awesome. I finished in 30:33 for an average pace of 3:41 min/km. Overall I won by 5 seconds. My team would go on to win one more leg (8 with Geoff Harris) and finish 4th overall. Great stuff and glad I was able to help with that placing.
Sadly I have no pictures.
Event 2 was the MEC race. I had planned on racing the 10km race, but as I arrived my knee was so tight from the day before that I knew that was not going to happen. I dropped down to the 5km race and went out for a warm up. By the end of the warm up I knew that was it. Still, this was the team event and I showed up to support my team, so I walked the 5 km race and finished 44th out of 56 people. A far cry from the day before, but life is highs and lows and I was happy to watch my team mates get great results in their race and really show the BLT Runners colours.
Finally on Sunday night I took part in the 3rd annual and my second Bare All For the Barre fundraiser for Prostate Cancer Canada. Essentially is is a giant Barre class (you'll have to look it up) with hand weights, balls and while normally in a nice dance studio, this time in an open warehouse space. This was 45 minutes are rather fun and totally hard (especially for wounded runners) barre class. In the end $23,000 was raised for Prostate Cancer Canada Atlantic which is so great and so totally in keeping with my up coming race in November, the Halifax Movember Run. Check out the video and pictures at the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bareallforthebarre/?fref=ts . It was great, and the follow up of beer and tacos could not be beat. Please think about joining in next year.
But just a little rest as this coming weekend in the final duathlon of the year in Riverport. Sadly I won't be in top shape, but hopefully the IT Band exercises and stretching will help speed things along and I will be able to complete the race without too much discomfort.
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