My first 22k - Melissa's Road Race - Banff, AB

So just a quick blog to tell everyone how my first 22k run went.

Previous to this past Saturday I have only ever ran 18k, twice. My goal race for my current 1/2 Marathon Training Clinic is technically Victoria, on October 10th. Way back in February, or whenever the registration for Melissa's was, I had intended to sign up for the 10k run, as I had heard it was lots of fun, (read: free beer at the finish). Now its is a very very popular race and it sells out in minutes, or an hour or so, something like that. Was having no luck trying to get online on the computer so I tried to register with my blackberry, lots of timeout and fat fingers later, I find I am registered for the 10k AND the 22k. Remember at this point, I don't think I had ever even ran 10km.

The nice part of Melissa's is that they are really good at letting people buy and sell and exchange bibs, so I wasn't worried about getting rid of the 22km bib. I pretty much just forgot about it as the race wasn't until September 25th.

Fast forward to September and I find myself in a 1/2 Marathon clinic AND I find that the weekend that the 22k race is, is also a 20km LSD training run.

So my logic goes something like this: If I run the 10k on Saturday, I have to run a 20km LSD on Sunday, for a total of 30km over 2 days. Now if I run the 22km race on Saturday, I can call it my LSD and save myself 8km. So out of pure and simple laziness I ran 22km on Saturday.

I finished the race with a chip time of 2:40:35, and since my target for this race, as I wasn't going to push too much (hah!) was 2:45, I am super happy with my time. I had a really strong first 10km (tying my record 10km time ~ 1:07:00) and even felt really good til about the 18km mark. At this point it was all new territory, and the course was 1km uphill, 1 km downhill, 1 km up, 1 km down for the remainder, which I had to dig really deep for. I ran my 10:1's (run/walk) for the entire race, no more, or less. BUT the last 3km I did walk through the water stations as I was out and wanted the little 15second walk breaks, oh and some water, LOL.

Anyway, DONE, DONE, DONE! Next up Victoria :)

Oh and did I mention the free beer? I got my 2, one from Penny and I think a 4th... I don't remember, kinda sad huh? Well worth it, I can't wait to kill my time next year ;)

Cheers!
Paul