Ottawa 2019
Last minute blog to maintain posting once a month. Here we go.
Running 2:17:37 at the Ottawa marathon was about four minutes slower than I originally wanted but it wasn’t all that bad. Here are the pros and cons.
Pros:
Training went really well. It was my best build-up since 2016.
I felt comfortable running ~3:10/km early in the race. In the past I’ve been able to feel a pace and figure out if that pace was sustainable or not.
I got all my bottles and consumed more carbs than planned. I’ve never done that before.
Ottawa was a really fun race and the crowd support was amazing.
First Canadian came with a good payday. 8th overall paid as well and added some bonus points towards world ranking.
Recovery went well and I felt like going for a run on Wednesday (I didn’t, I’ll wait a few more days).
Cons:
I didn’t change my planned pace even though it was 17C at the start and got hotter when the sun came out. I was too stubborn.
The humidity made it a tough day and I struggled to push really hard in the final 7km.
It was a little lonely out there, I only passed 2 runners throughout the race and once I caught them I didn’t see another runner as they were too far up the road.
Even with the bonus points for finishing 8th my time was too slow to really help with Olympic qualification.
The morning before and after the race the temps were cool and it was calm. I know that doesn’t make a difference for the actual race, but it somehow makes it more frustrating to think of what could have been.
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On the topic of Olympic qualification. (Edited June 1st after I crunched numbers on IAAF.org again) I feel that it will take about 1120 points to be ranked high enough to make the Olympics. [I still have to calculate how many runners not ranked in the top 80 (3 per country) have achieved an auto standard of top 10 at WWM, top 5 at GL…]. That’s just a guess and to be safe I’m aiming for 1125 points. A 2:12:05 gets you 1125 points. If I had run 2:13:48 (1095 points) and finished 8th at Ottawa, the extra 30 placing points would have given me one performance at 1125 points.
Or, just get the auto 2:11:30. Right! haha
Running 2:11:30 doesn’t seem likely for me (unless training really improves in the next few months). However, I do feel that sub 2:13 is within my capabilities and that might be good enough if I can get two in that range with some placing points.
My last three races have been my slowest marathons of my life (Boston 2018, STWM 2018, Ottawa 2019) which is starting to screw with my head more than it should. I know why each race was slower than it could have been but I’m still guessing as to where my top-end lies.
I’ll have to wait about 5 months to have another crack at the marathon. In the meantime I’ll get after some shorter races and chase the Speed River guys to find some turnover.
Weather in Ottawa on Sunday was not ideal.
FLOAT ON 
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