2019 was a great running year for me. I’ve been healthy (coming off a broken ankle from a pothole last year), managed to make the time to get out, and hit a slew of races over the season including my furthest: the Sinister 7 160km trail race.
What more do I need to chalk this year up as a great season? Well, I failed to qualify for Boston by 12 seconds in the Calgary marathon, so instead of stewing all winter about the results I decided to sign up for the last qualifying race of the season: the Okanagan Marathon in Kelowna. We blasted out on the 7 hour drive the night before and crashed a few hours before the race.
Its a flat course, in a cool time of the year and offered a little escape before we settle in for a long cold winter. I love the city, the lake, and was thrilled that my wife signed up for the half and we were going to have a bit of an escape from the kids for a few days.
Normally I’m all about the experience, as a non elite running I truly don’t get worked up about my finishing time as long as I feel I put in the effort and hand a great experience. This race however was a bit different in that I really wanted to go through winter knowing I had finally qualified for Boston.
The weather was perfect for a late season race, and I arrived early to mentally get in the right state. Pushing hard means entering the pain cave for an extended period of time, in this case 3 hours. Its much more mentally exhausting than physically. Your body screams at you to stop, but if you mind can overcome, you body will just drag along at the pace you command.
As the race started I positioned behind a small group of fast runners. It takes a lot of mental energy to continually look down at your watch and gauge your pace. I find it much easier to just pin a fast runner and try to keep up, let the mind go empty and purely focus on just keeping behind the ‘pacer’.
Kelowna is a two lap race, which normally I’m not a fan of, but when you are trying to go fast it lets you experience the course, then know exactly what is ahead of the second half. I was really impressed with how well run this race was, the course markings, water stations, scenic route along the lake and groups of people cheering the racers on.
After half way through I was really focused on keeping pace, but with an amazing sub 3 hour split pace I started thinking about the possibility of crushing my goal with a sub 3 hour race. This is the worst thing that can happen because it make you get excited early and the race really begins at km 30, not 21.
Like most of my marathons I hit 35km feeling great only to hit a complete wall. Legs feel like they are encased in concrete and energy drops to a minimum. This time however I was determined to keep pace and finish within my Boston Qualifying time of sub 3:10.
The last 7km was a mental gauntlet. My body was screaming to stop, but I managed to push through and came in with a 3:05:48!
My immediate reaction was that I left some gas in the tank, but having crushed my goal and qualified for Boston I was stoked. Either way it was my fastest Marathon and made me finally believe that I could come in under 3 hours, maybe next year for now I was happy with the last race of the season.
I walked around for an hour knowing that I had another 7 hour car ride ahead of us. Finally qualified for Boston and although I missed next spring cutoff, I feel confident my time will be good for the 2021 race.
As I get older I often get frustrated that I didn’t get into racing and ultra running at a much younger age. I’ve finally found an outlet that completely drains my stress, anxiety and makes to feel physically better, it just took me 20 years longer than it should have. Whenever I feel this way I recall the Rich Roll autobiography, he wasted years on addiction only to find his outlet and become the fittest man on earth. In his words of wisdom: “Keep running”.
Thanks Kelowna for the perfect weekend to end my 2019 racing season. Thanks Rich for the inspiration.