Good:
- scenic course, at least 90% of it was downhill. It was a pleasant surprise as Mississauga is known as stereotypical suburbia, a concrete jungle, but the race took us through a university campus, alongside a river, the shore of Lake Ontario and a treed residential neighbourhood with palatial houses.
- spaced my gel intake perfectly, never felt like I was running out of gas.
- absolutely glorious day, not a cloud in the sky, low wind and humidity.
- ran almost perfectly even splits.
- did not pee through clothes, took 1 pit stop in a bush at 11K. (more on that later) WHY do people waste time to line up for the portapotty when there are perfectly good bushes to pee in?
- despite risking the wrath of the chafing gods by wearing a skirt with panties, not shorts underneath, my inner thighs remain chafe-free. THANK YOU BODYGLIDE.
- no blisters
- my last 3 races my Garmin time matched my chip time EXACTLY, I am getting really good at switching off the Garmin right as I hit the mat!
Bad:
- I must've dropped my extra pad when I took my gel at 7K, so after my pee break I just prayed. Fortunately my post partum incontinence has improved a LOT in the past 2 weeks and 1 pad kept me dry for the entire race.
- the shuttle back to the race start (race was point to point) was stuck in traffic, it took 90 minutes to get back to my car.
- I didn't pick up the pace until 19K. As Nickelback sings, "feeling way too damn good" - I forgot it's supposed to hurt a bit during a race!
- my beloved Drymax Maximum Protection sock sprung a leak over the big toe.
Random fact:
- Daniel Njenga (of Spirit of the Marathon fame) won the marathon.
www.runsaturday.com/act/
286266
Duration: 2:16:43
Pace: 6:29 / kilometer
Field Placement: 3569 / 4925 (72.5%)
Age group: 30 – 34
Group Placement: 304 / 428 (71%)
Gender Placement: 1802 / 2821 (63.9%)
Race day dawned partly cloudy and not much wind, a change from the forecast on Friday. Bryden and I stayed at my parent's condo on Saturday night. Usually I eat some kind of yogurt or cheese or peanut butter to get protein in at breakfast, but Greek yogurt is next to impossible to find here and I forgot to ask my dad to buy PB. So coffee with milk, a whole grain pita with butter and Marmite, plus a pear for breakfast, and I ate it around 5:30 am, race start was 8:05. There was a water station with Gatorade at the start, and I am kicking myself for not having any. By kilometre 2, my head was spinning because my carby breakfast was a distant memory. By kilometre 5, I was still on pace for a PR, but I got a nasty side stitch. I've been getting stitches the entire post partum so far and I have no idea why. I took a short walk break. Stitch came back. Walked again at km #6. Walked through the water station at km 7 and had a sip of water but nothing made the stitch go away or even lessen, I should have just run through it for all the good the walk breaks did me. By km #8, the course flattened out (no more downhill flying) and my Garmin was showing 45 minutes and change. I knew there was no way in hell I would be able to run 2 kms at a 5:00 pace, so the PR was out the window. My next thought was, "run comfortably hard and go for the finish under an hour", which I did. Kilometre 9 it started to rain a bit..course went downhill again and when I realized I was in danger of missing my stretch goal of sub 1:00 with the finish line in plain view, I managed to dig a bit deeper, found my finishing kick and came in at 58:45...actually my 2nd best 10K time ever, but ultimately disappointing when it came down to a stupid nutrition mistake costing me the PR. And the icing on the poo cake was that I got a giant chafe from my HRM strap, which has only ever happened before during a marathon, when it is understandable. Field Placement: 6592 / 11913 (55.3%) Age group: 30 – 34 Group Placement: 543 / 1221 (44.5%) Gender Placement: 2742 / 6684 (41%) At least I didn't pee through my clothes (damn PP incontinence!) and Bryden looks good wearing a medal. 
