It's been a week now since the Toronto International Half Marathon and the legs are still in recovery mode. The good news is that I hit my time goal with a 1hr 39min 11sec chip time (1hr 40min 10sec gun time) for a 387th place showing (of 3494 finishers). It wasn't just me though - I don't know if it was the layout of the route, later start time, or general atmosphere, but everybody I knew who ran this race seemed to have done really well and were happy with their efforts. Even a last minute entry that I knew from someone who not only hadn't trained for it, but ran with a partially injured foot, put up an impressively strong performance. It was simply an all 'round good day.
With this being the last competition before Jamiaca, I've been thinking more about how to mentally approach the long one. I've realized these past few weeks that I really enjoy the half marathon distance and can see myself running at this level more and more in the years to come. As for the full 42.2Km run, however, it's a much different beast, and I don't think I'll be aiming for any particular crazy time goal or anything like that. My current philosophy is to keep training hard from home to get in as best shape as possible so that I can run it comfortably and have some fun out there - to enjoy the race instead of simply surviving it! From what I've heard from last year's runners, the course they've chosen is a gorgeous one, hugging Negril's Seven Mile Beach - one of the most famed coastlines in all the Caribbean, and I plan on soaking up every minute of it to the sounds of chill reggae music with the sun shining from above.
Only six weeks to go now of training and tapering till we board that jet plane. The NCFC crew from Regina are doin their thing well too and have been running just as hard. After competing in their final tune up in Kelowna a couple weeks back, they're looking strong as we enter the final 40 days of this madness. Not that anyone's counting.
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