Moose Run 2018

A little catch up to with a little Moose Run recap for 2018.

After a trip to Australia, the morning of this year's Moose Run was a bit of a shock. A -8C temperature and a bitter wind. Yikes. Regardless I had made a promise to help Pat Bradley with a marathon paced training run on his way to Boston.

I opted to dress for the cold, knowing that even though there would be times with loads of warmth, there were also going to be periods of nasty cold.

A few other BLT Runners were on hand as well:

Some of us were running this as a fun run, others as training runs for marathons. The Moose Run is a great tune up for Spring marathons.

The time to start came upon us and off we went. The start is slightly downhill, so we were above Pat's pace but the effort was low so that was okay. Ideally we wanted to keep a fairly even effort. 

As is usually the case, the pack quickly thins out in the front of the run and by 5-6 km in things are pretty well set. A few people will pass you and you will pass a few that went out a bit hard, but not a lot of change.

Water stops were fun as the water was freezing cold, but a nice respite when it came. 

While the section of hills at around the 4-5km mark are tough going out, it is really the stretch from about 8km to the turn around that is the first real challenge. It is a constant climb and this year was into the wind. The extra time we had gained at the start was good to have, though we held our pace well.

After the turn around the wind was at our back, we were headed down and life was good. I kept checking in with Pat and he was feeling good. But still, we held the effort a little bit back to not push it. The goal was clear, to test a marathon running effort. 

The next challenge was the series of hills heading back from about 17 km to 22 km. this included some short but crazy walls. We backed it right down when needed know that the amount of time lost here was not going to be important.  

Finally the home stretch, slight up hill to the finish. I kept Pat's spirits up and he was doing really well. I just wanted a nice even effort heading to the finish. This was after all only a portion of the marathon distance.

With 1 km to go, i told Pat to tuck in and let me finish the pacing duties. I picked up the pace a little at this point to show him how changing speed can actually feel better by recruiting different muscle groups. We ran a little faster then did a great fast 100m to finish it off. 1:48 was the time with a 4:23 avg pace. A little faster than marathon pace but within the window.

Great job Pat! And a great job to Marg who soloed through this tough course with her marathon paced run, as well as the other BLT Runners Craig, Heather, Tom and Stacey!

Chili and coffee to finish and all was good.