Mississauga Marathon Sunday May 15,2011

It was a totally amazing day, loved every minute of it...even the weather!

Race day started real early. I was up at 01:30 AM 30 minutes before my alarms were set. After my usual race day routines I left home at 03:20 heading to Flesherton to pick up fellow Saugeen Tri Club member Grant. The 90+ minute drive to the city went by quickly. The wind was really blowing and it was raining and 9C when we arrived. Hit Tims for a coffee and some Oatmeal Cookies and set up Grants new Garmin for him. Arrived at the Hotel where Anne was staying to pick up my race kit. We didn't waste any time and headed for Square One arriving at 06:30. Grant suited up and headed off to pick off his race kit , I waited in the warm car until 07:00 where I headed to the start. Bumped into Robbie T and BJH from Running Mania. Had a bit of a tough time finding the Tri group but they ended up finding me.

It took nearly 3 minutes to cross the mat after the gun went off. First 14K was done with a group of about 8. It was fun chatting and moving along. Most of the group were thinking 6:00 pace and that is more or less what we achieved until the races headed off in two directions. Things thinned out quickly and Grant pulled ahead a few hundred meters and I found myself running with Leanne. She was picking up the pace trying to catch Grant and I stuck with her. Passing the half way point Leanne and I crossed the mat together and Grant was ahead by about 40 seconds. 4K later the 25K split we were still 30 seconds behind Grant but we were starting to close the gap. When we finally caught up with him we went by him and I thought he was starting to fall off pace but we didn't get very far and he was with us again. For the last 15K the three of us stuck together. The pace was starting to pick up and I called it out when ever we sustained anything faster then a 5 minute pace. With 10K to go I stopped trying to slow things down and we logged our fastest Ks of the day. 33 through 38Ks were done in 5:21, 5:39, 5:23, 5:21, 5:25 and 5:25. Pretty darn consistent for first time Marathoners considering we started the day around a 6:00 pace! We were doing all the passing in the last 10K of the race, I really enjoyed it after being passed by thousands in my last 42.2! In the last few Ks Leanne began to have a tough time holding pace. Grant and I were watching her closely trying to keep her close never pulling away to far. I knew that we would be very close to breaking 4 hours and after running a couple of Ks in the 5:40s I encouraged Grant to go for it but he declined wanting to stick close to Leanne. We hung in there for the last couple holding the 5:40 ish pace.

Crossing the finish line was special , our gun times were 4:03:57, 4:03:58 and 4:03:58. Chip times were really interesting. Grant and I started together and finished in 4:01:02 and 4:01:03. Leanne started nearly a minute after us and her chip time was 4:00:04 ...oh so very close to breaking 4hrs.

The one thing that really impressed me about Lisa and Grant was that they never stopped running. No Hill, Aide Station , Puddle, Curb or anything stopped them, they just kept running no matter what. To top things off we all had close to a 4min negative split. What a great day!

The after part was a little uncomfortable, I was FROZEN to the bone...should have done a drop bag with warm dry clothing! Unlike last year there was no wait getting on the heated Bus. The ride back to Square One was fun and I stopped shivering. When I arrived back at he car I quickly changed into some warm dry clothes and then headed home in a very warm car!