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. 
connect.garmin.com/activ
ity/26362090
I had 3 race strategies:
1) run a long warmup and get everything out of my system *cough* pre-race.
2) walk through the water station.
3) start slow and run a negative split race.
1.6K warmup and 3 bathroom stops later, I barely make it into the corral before the horn. I felt every single one of the 4000 calories (not exaggerating) of greasy Chinese food I ate last night still sitting in my stomach but somehow magically disappeared between the warmup and race start. I was in the 5th row, which would have gotten me killed by Kenyans in a marathon, but since no one lines up properly in a 5K, I didn't even get shoved.
Splits (minutes per km):
6:37
6:51
6:52
6:35
6:01
I haven't seen a 6 as the first number of my pace for a VERY long time! The second half of the course features some mild downhills and then a mild uphill in the last kilometer, so I took it easy until the turnaround, realized I felt TOTALLY AWESOME and then turned on the afterburners as much as I could.
Official chip time: 32:58. My slowest non-preggo 5K? 31:42.
YES I DO HAVE A BUMP!
With Beth (fingersandtoes) and Stacey (brontemom) post race:
connect.garmin.com/activ
ity/16640597
I should have realized that the course, being out and back on a route that goes towards Lake Ontario in the first half would be UPHILL on the way back. When I figured this out, I knew a negative split was never going to happen so I gunned it on the way down and just tried to not slow too much on the 2nd half.
My time was 29:06.6, not spectacular by any standards but all I wanted was to finish this race under 30 minutes, so I am happy. Also, I still finished WAY up in the pack.
Field Placement: 486 / 2557 (19%)
Age group: 30 – 34
Group Placement: 29 / 237 (12.2%)
Gender Placement: 188 / 1622 (11.6%)
When I went to get the medal engraved, they didn't have the official times posted yet, so I had them put '19W3D' on it, as a pregnancy memento.
connect.garmin.com/activ
ity/14537724
For the first time in my entire life, I slept like the dead the night before a big race. I guess it "helped" that on Thursday night I got 3 hours of sleep (thank you DH for coming home at 12:30 am), then on Friday I was up from 4:15 am to 11:30 pm and Saturday up at 6 again, no nap on Friday or Saturday.
Race morning dawned gray and cloudy and I brought my sexy garbage bag "dress" in the car and put it on when it began to rain. Fortunately, it was just a quick shower and done by the time my parents dropped me off at the race start.
I have to admit that I commited a running Cardinal Sin - I wore a brand new top that I bought at the expo on Friday at the race! My original plan was to wear my Awesome Shirt but when that didn't ship in time, I had to dream up something else. This is so shallow but I didn't want to wear the same shirt as I did in Ottawa. I saw these tanks from Robena [ robena.ca/ ] with a matching long sleeved shrug. The tank has a large pocket in the back like a biking jersey to store the shrug, perfect for a morning that would start off cool and warm up.
I was surprisingly not nervous at the start, considering I was shaking like a leaf in Ottawa. I had a little talk with Cheeto while standing there:
"Mommy is going to take you for a LONG ride today, please behave yourself for the next few hours."
I looked back at my race registration and saw that I had signed up exactly 4 days before I found out I was pregnant, so I was assigned to a faster corral than I was planning to run but did not change corrals at the expo. Not wanting to be a d-bag, I ran the first km a bit faster than I had planned, just so I didn't get killed.
The first half went very smoothly. I think the real adventure began when the course split from the HM and took us into the desolate industrial part of Toronto known as the Port Lands, scene of the Poop Fiasco a month ago. I had taken 2 extra strength Tylenol when I got up and they wore off around this time. My sciatica did not flare up, but my hips! oh my hips! they wanted to detach from my body and go on vacation somewhere warm and sunny. So I popped 2 more Tylenol (still well under the maximum limit of 4000 mg) and the pain became tolerable.
One of the course changes was the elimination of the Leslie Spit, where I ran the Poopy 30K. It's windy and even more lonely than the Port Lands, plus the terrain is as unpredictable as you can get. The new course goes through The Beaches, where there are lots of restaurants with patios and a Starbucks every 100 m, so there were lots of cheering crowds. There was this one particular group of about 5 people in this area giving high fives...when I went by them, I yelled, "GIVE SOME LOVE FOR THE PREGNANT LADY!!!" which garnered even louder cheers. Went by a church that had the BEST signs out front, "Is there a patron saint of blisters?" "Even atheists pray at mile 24." Wish I could have snapped pictures of those signs!
Once I passed the halfway mark, I broke down the race by counting down the kilometres until I would see mom, dad and Greg, who were planning to be at kms 30-35 (right across the street from each other, out and back). That cheered me up a lot.
Coming...
...and going...
I brought 5 gels, with the strategy of taking one at kms 7, 14, 21, 28, 35..but It Happened around km 38 - I hit the wall, HARD. I guess Cheeto was causing me to burn more calories and the water stations with Gatorade were not coming soon enough. I tried to think about making it through the next 10 minutes since I was doing a 10/1 run walk ratio, but I was walking. A lot. Time for a change in plans, fast. At this point I was still on pace to finish in 5:00 or maybe even a bit faster..the strategy turned to SURVIVE and FINISH. There was no question of DNF, not with my hip/glutes feeling decent and 4K left to go, I just had to make it to the finish line somehow.
Made the final turn and it's 500 metres to the finish and still I cannot make myself run. I finally did with about 150m to go because I will NOT walk across a finish line...base goal achieved! Finish upright and smiling. And smile I did. FINISHING A MARATHON IS THE GREATEST FEELING IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
For everyone who encouraged me and believed in me and cheered me on in person and in spirit, this is for you.
For everyone who told me, "you can't run a marathon, you're pregnant!" and for those who think pregnancy is a time to be parked on the couch watching TV and eating junk food..well...I showed you, didn't I? 
I just got the confirmation today, haven't seen my GP yet so no due date.
The BIG catch:
I am registered to run the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon on 9/27...I intend to continue with training.
And if you have me as a friend on Facebook, I would appreciate that you not mention it there...I'm not ready to have my real life acquaintances know quite yet.
If I don't sound THAT excited, it's because I'm still in a semi state of shock.
The pain, oh, THE PAIN!
I only thought I was going to die the last 10K or so of the marathon. I thought I was going to die EVERY LAST SECOND of the 5K I ran on Saturday. Beautiful cool night, low humidity - a huge contrast to last year when it was 28 C at 9 pm with humidity so high you needed to chew every breath.
The worst thing about this race is that there is no chip time, it's a big enough race to warrant paying for an extra mat at the start line! So Beth and I lined up in the 2nd or 3rd row and prayed we wouldn't get stampeded.
It was so dark that I couldn't see my pace on my Garmin and I didn't want to waste time fiddling with the backlight so I just ran like hell!
It was the closest I've ever come to puking at the finish line. I coughed so hard that I could taste blood! I was so wiped I spent most of yesterday napping and being a vegetable. If someone had told me 2 years ago that a 5K would kick my ass more than a marathon, I would be so dumbfounded that I wouldn't even be able to laugh.
Last year's official gun time: 28:11 (old PR - watch time 27:44)
This year's official gun time: 25:43
Field Placement: 193 / 700 (27.6%)
Age group: 30 – 34
Group Placement: 7 / 71 (9.9%) - HIGHEST PLACEMENT EVER!
Gender Placement: 60 / 430 (14%)
