Sat Apr 9th: Technosport Sprint
Meet
Ten Carleton swimmers participated in this
meet, despite the 7am start! Those participating were: George,
Margaret K, Bozena, Francois A, Lynn, Bill, Mits, Brad, Steve
Morris and Esther. Danny also
competed for Technosport. Unofficially, there were quite a few PBs,
and club records were set by Bozena (100fl, 400IM),
Francois A (400fs), and Lynn (200bk, also Ont
and Nat Rec). Full results are still not available, and will be included
next time. Thanks to Francois A for his help
with George's photos, which are now much improved: http://carletonmasters.tripod.com/aphoto.html.
Fri Apr 15 - Sun Apr 17th: Quebec Masters
Provincial Championships, Trois-Rivieres
Congratulations to Lina
(Whitecaps "A") and Violaine (6:30am Earlybirds) for their
great results at this meet, and also to Danny F (Coach) who
competed for Technosport. Violaine set no fewer than 6 club records, while
Lina set three! Here's a summary:
Violaine (Women's 45-49): 2nd: 1500fs
26:42.80 (club record), 200fl 4:22.45 (club record), 400IM 7:45.07 (PB,
club record); 3rd: 200fs (PB); 4th: 400fs 6:48.42 (PB, club record), 200br;
5th: 100br. Violaine's 800fs split in her 1500: 14:04.44 was a club
record, as was her 100fl split in her 400IM: 2:01.44!
Lina (Women's 50-54): 1st: 100fs, 200br
3:31.77 (club record), 100IM 1:28.99 (club record); 2nd:
50fs, 50fl; 3rd: 50br, 200IM 3:22.50 (club
record)
Danny (Men's 35-39):
1st: 400fs (PB), 800fs 9:10.92 (PB, Ont Rec, Nat Rec), 200bk, 200br, 200fl,
200IM, 400IM 4:50.86 (PB, Ont Rec, Nat Rec)
Mon Apr 18th: Boston
Marathon
Congratulations to Jennifer Eberman
(6:30am Earlybirds) and Colette K (8:30am Earlybirds) on their
great results! Both Jenn and Colette were very happy with their times and
made the Ottawa Citizen as they were in the top 10 Ottawa women.
Vincent S (7:30am Earlybirds) wasn't so happy with his results,
but did well under challenging circumstances. Congrats also to
Jackie L (Whitecaps "B")'s husband, who also competed and
finished in 3:42. And also to Chris M (x-Whitecaps
"B") who finished in under 3 hours. The full information on Colette, Jenn
and Vincent follows:
Vincent S (7:30am Earlybirds) 2144th overall, 1979th man,
and 549th in his age group in 3:19:34 (3:15:39)
Jenn Eberman (6:30am Earlybirds) 2241st overall, 175th
woman, and 134th in her age group in 3:20:24 (3:14:15)
Colette K (8:30am Earlybirds) 6394th overall, 1199th
woman, and 223rd in her age group in 3:49:31 (3:39:49)
Here's Vincent's report from
TriRudy:
Not sure what’s up with the lack of Boston reports, so I guess
I’ll post one. Hopefully there are a few others today. I think it’s a good
experience to share, and would be interested in other stories (especially since
mine is a bit whiny, still suffering a bit, and despite my attempted positive
mental attitude in general, the following is not as happy of a story as it could
be).
So a few of the high (and low) lights of Monday's 109th
Boston marathon. To put it in perspective, I’ll back it up a year. Last year I
went, and it was a shocker - 2nd hottest day in recorded history, close to 30
degrees. After the first mile or two, you threw away the pace bands and figured
just finishing was the best case scenario. A friend who I started with, and
finished within a minute or so of, pointed out likely the only consolation -
that we passed close to 4,000 odd runners on that day (and finished 20 min+
slower than our qualifying runs). So last year, we felt the pain, the down hill
impacts on the quads, a tough run... Managed to re-qualify late last year, so it
was back to Boston.
This year, I was hoping for a much better
day. Training included a lot of hills – up and down, and hopefully enough
volume. After a number of months training, a bit of a challenge with a work
related trip out to BC last week. Not a good idea – never adjusted to the time
change, a few short night sleeps... came back, burnt out and picked up a slight
cold. Not too extreme, just enough to stuff up my nose, introduce a bit of a bad
mood, and make me not want to fly. Suffice it to say, I took it easy during that
last week, missed a few training runs... wrote it off as tapering... Got to
Boston Sunday around 2 PM to find it way too hot. Maybe I wasn’t used to it, but
it felt like it was well into the 70’s. Decided to walk over to pick up my race
kit. Too long of a walk, got a bit lost, decided to also go to the Pasta dinner
- what a long line-up! In general, too long on my feet and another challenge in
getting there.
But next morning, we got there. Still a
challenge or two. Thought I was a bit better off with my positioning - 6333, so
in theory I could go to the buses to take you out to Hopkinton a bit later - an
apparent advantage. In the end, I think it meant you just got to stand in line
longer (it seems most people don’t really pay much attention to the
instructions. I don’t blame them a lot... getting there for 7 or 7:30 for a
12:00 race start...). Hopkinton was ok, but you have to wonder as you wait
around for a few hours, as the cool morning fades into the hot day... can’t this
start earlier. With that being said, I don’t envy the job of moving 20,000
people 26 miles out of the city – it is a well tuned machine.
Race time came, and we got in our corals. I was one further ahead this year
(7718 last year), and I was hoping to have a much better race. Getting psyched
now... Started ok... tried to go out slow... missed the first mile marker, by
the second realized I was close to 7 min miles. I had my pace band on - should
have been closer to 7:15... continued to try to slow down, my heart rate was too
high - at one point even put myself behind runners to slow down. Still was doing
7 min miles most of the time... with the downhill at the start, I knew I wasn’t
going to be doing a negative split, so I guessed it was ok. Tried to keep good
form down the hills to avoid the destroying the quads again. I felt great
through the half - a few minutes in the bank, had tried to grab water and
Gatorade at every mile.. tried to pay attention to the heat which was feeling
quite strong (someone told me it got to the high end of the 70’s, but I can't
find anyone else saying it got that hot). Through! the half I started to dream
of a really good time... started planning on how long to hold off before pushing
hard. And it was so much easier in the States – only have to push your watch for
lap times 26 times... so much easier than 42 ;-) Life was
good...
Soon after, reality set in. My 7:15’s became common.
Soon after, they became a challenge. 7:30's... well I had a few 7:00’s, so
that’s ok. 7:45... well, I’d better speed up. 8:00 min miles - speed up... soon
after, it was getting to a point where I was going to just forget about it. Who
cares about the time... it’s Boston! Then the hills came up... I noticed two (my
watch said there were four in the 15 to 20 m range leading up to Heartbreak
hill). I wasn’t really phased last year at Heartbreak hill. This time, I felt
one before, and Heartbreak. I was getting close to toast. After Heartbreak, it
was just ‘let’s just finish this running!’ It was now less than an hour -
minutes away. I can do that. I felt terrible, was wondering why I ever started
running marathons... Then at that point, I realized that a) I forgot to use the
Bodyglide in one spot, b) maybe I shouldn’t be pouring all that water over my
front, (partially trying to keep my core body temp down, partially spillage -
and on a related note Gatorade does not feel good in the eyes... maybe next time
I’ll walk a bit through the water stations), and c) maybe I shouldn’t of worn a
white singlet... I’ll leave it at that at the risk of providing too much
information. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t looking for any cameras by the end of
the race. Three miles to go, feeling like crap, quads were toast despite my
efforts to run down hill the right way - and I was toast. Time to add insult to
injury – or more appropriately, injury to injury. Don’t ask me how, maybe it was
uneven pavement, maybe I wasn’t paying attention – don’t know, but came down on
my left ankle, foot sideways, twisted, legs buckled, went down hard on the
pavement... it wasn’t pretty. And of course, enough people around to make this
quite dramatic. Lots of fellow runners checking if I was ok, with my responding,
‘yes, keep going’ and trying to play it down... and having done this at least
once or twice per winter, knowing! that if I don’t keep going, it just gets
keeps hurting, swells up big ... Got up, started running taking as much weight
off it as possible, cursing... But in a mile or so, it didn’t feel bad (suffice
it say, I have a reasonably big, although not huge, ankle today). Went through
hell for another two miles or so, swore off running several times, once again
passed 4,000 odd runners throughout the race, and PB’ed in Boston re-qualifying
for next year (Back to Boston – Part II ???). And of course, one of the good
things about a day like that, is the next days are pretty good – no matter what!
And who knows, maybe in a day or two, I’ll go for a short run...
I also want to thank Gilles Lamenoise at the Ottawa Lions for his coaching
assistance and support, and the rest of my training partners for being there and
providing support... And of course, mention Chris Macknie’s great run in case he
or someone else doesn’t – sub 3 hours on a day that I personally thought was far
from ideal... great job Chris!
Hope the next one, and your next
ones... are all fun!