Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked

Well 6/7ths of Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon went as planned. Until 36km I was on pace to run 2:13 high. My aim was to run under 2:14 and place in the top 3 Canadians. After 36km I started to slow down and then my last 4 kilometres were really rough and I lost about 1 minute in those last 4km and ran 2:15:23 to finish as 4th Canadian.

Although I didn’t run 2:13, or even 2:14 I’m not disappointed with 2:15:23 for various reasons I’ll get into after the race-recap.

I was right when I thought a sub-2:14 would place second or third amongst Canadians. A sub-2:14 clocking along with the 35 or 30 placing points for 2nd or 3rd Canadian would be a good result to help with Olympic selection via world ranking. A 2:15:23 and 4th Canadian (25 placing points) doesn’t help enough in regards to Olympic selection. To off-set that result and have a good average of two results I’d have to run under 2:11:30, which would be an auto-standard anyways.

What I was wrong with however was who and how fast the top Canadian men would go. Most of what I based estimates off of was half marathon results in the previous two months. Cam dropped out of Philly and didn’t look great. I had a feeling he would turn things around in the 5 weeks before STWM but just enough to squeeze under 2:12:00 for top Canadian.

The other three guys who were going with the 2:11:30 group were Tristan Woodfine (no half marathon), Evan Essalink (65:07 Edmonton Half) and Trevor Hofbauer (66:29 Edmonton Half). A 65:30 opening half split seemed ambitious given those results from mid-August. (As a comparison I ran 64:09 at Edmonton Half 5 weeks before I ran 2:10:28 in Berlin).

Chris Balestrini and Kevin Coffey, who ran 65:42 and 65:55 at Edmonton Half weren’t even going with the 66:30 group that Dylan Wykes, Thomas Toth, Enoch Nadler, Josh Griffiths, Nick Earl and I were going with. Tristan ended up going with our pack because his stomach didn’t feel good at the start, he wasn’t that confident he’d even finish the race but thought he might as well give it a go.

Rory Linkletter decided to go out alone in 66:00. That’s a tough way to go into your first marathon. Heck, that’s a hard way to run your 10th marathon!

Our pack had a pacer and a few half marathoners and we clicked off the first 15km according to plan. After that our pacer looked as though he was hurting and the pace began to slip. Enoch was on him the most to get back on pace. We went through halfway in 66:48.

Our pacer dropped out around 22km and Enoch did most of the pace making after that with myself and Tristan sharing some leading. By that point we could tell we were catching Rory and Evan had fallen off his pack. Trevor and Cam were still with their pacer and Trevor was feeling so good he was trying to “high 5” Rory on the switchback.

The pace from 20km to 30km was honest, I covered that 10km stretch in 31:22 (2:12 marathon pace). We passed Rory and then Evan in that stretch. At 30km Enoch was 3 seconds ahead of me and Tristan was 3 seconds behind me. Tristan caught me before the 32km turnaround where we saw that Cam had fallen off of Trevor. Tristan and I ran together for a couple km and then I slowly started to fade off of him. I was 4 seconds back of Tristan by 35km.

Enoch and Tristan went on to run 2:13:04 and 2:13:16. They picked up the pace a bit but I lost about 2 minutes to Tristan in the final 7km!

By 39km people were telling me that Cam was dying but I couldn’t see him for the longest time. When I did there wasn’t much I could do about it, my legs were not moving. I covered my final 2.2km in 7:56 (about 1 minute slower than what I was closing in 2015 marathons). Cam was about 1 minute slower than I was in the final 2.2km (8:54), and hence why people were urging me to chase him.

When Josh Griffiths passed me in the final 100m it was as if I was standing still. For reference, he closed his last 2.2km in 7:02.

When I crossed the line I saw Hof getting interviewed. I could tell he finished as first Canadian and figured he got the 2:11:30 standard. But when he told me he ran 2:09:51 I was speechless. It seemed so far ahead of any result he’s ever had (that’s not a knock, he describes that himself in his blog). I felt strongly he was due for a PB because I knew he had been sick leading up to his 2:16:48 in Hamburg but I thought a 2:12-14 would have been a big leap.

On the women’s side I wasn’t as surprised by the big PB’s that Dayna Pidhoresky and Emily Setlack ran to break 2:30. When Emily ran 72 minutes at Philly I told a few people that day that she would run under 2:30 this fall. Dayna ran 71 back in 2011, the biggest surprise with her was that she hasn’t run 2:32-2:34 a couple times already.

I can’t really explain why my legs shut down as much as they did. I got all my bottles and estimate that I got over 40g/cho/hr, maybe even 50g/cho/hr. Going that far into a marathon at a pace that would make me really happy is motivating. That is one reason I’m happy with my result.

Another reason why I’m happy with the race is that I fought the whole way. There have been a few races in the past couple years where it was evident that I wasn’t going to have a great day and I didn’t dig that deep. Like in Philly, whats the difference between 65:15 and 65:47? I’m not going to be thrilled with either, why kill myself.

I’m also happy I set the Canadian Masters  Marathon record that was held by Derek Fernie at 2:19. In the past 8 weeks I’ve set the Canadian Master’s 10km (30:09), 10 Mile (49:13), Half marathon (65:47) and marathon (2:15:23) records.