Worst blog ever

Whoa, July just zipped by! It was only after 8pm on July 31st that I realized I hadn’t wrote a blog this month. I thought about writing one earlier this month after I raced Edmonton but decided to put it off in hopes I’d have more to share by now… Should have written a blog a couple weeks ago.

Canada Running Series once again put on a stellar event at the LuluLemon 10km in Edmonton (July 7). My expectations going into the race weren’t high as it was only 6 weeks after the Ottawa marathon. I took a full week off running and then a very easy week after the marathon. I won the race in Edmonton the year before but I had a lot more time after my Spring marathon.

Early on during the 10km I felt as though I was holding onto the chase pack (Levins, Watson, Ballestrini, Coffey, Rawlings) and wasn’t even concerned about Essalink and Chesoo a few seconds up the road. Sometime before the halfway mark I put myself into the mix and started to feel better. My previous 3 races I had talked myself out of it for one reason or another and this time I started to tell myself “it’s just an early season race.” But I pushed those thoughts out of my head and found the fire to compete.

At 9km there was still Levins, Balestrini, Coffey and myself shooting for the last place on the podium. I started to push the pace hoping to drop anyone, or everyone. As we rounded the corner with less than 50m to go Levins went by me pretty quickly and I looked back, saw Balestrini and knew I had to keep on the gas or get passed. I held onto 4th place and was very pleased with the result. It had been quite a while since I surprised (a good surprise) myself in a race.

Since then my training has progressed well and I’m starting to raise my volume ahead of a fall marathon. In the meantime I have a couple races that I’m really looking forward to:

August 3rd – TD Beach to Beacon 10k

August 24th – Crim 10 Miler

Beach to Beacon will be my first race as a master. Although I like the idea of competing for an added prize money pool my ambitions to do well in the overall race are still my goal.

Ok, time to pack for my flight to Portland, ME tomorrow.