Today was a pretty cool day, in that today I had another
great run, and crossed a threshold I had never really given a lot of thought to,
but reflecting on it now, is quite an accomplishment.
First I’ll talk about today’s run in the Egg Nog Jog, a
challenging 10.8k run through the rolling hills of Terra Cotta, ON. The first
time I ran this a few years ago, I came into it thinking that 10.8k was nothing
as I had run half marathons, 30k races and even one full…. but I took the
course for granted and it humbled me. The event is a local running gem, a well-organized
winter run limited to only 600 runners so it is not over-crowded. So this year,
I feel my overall training was better and knowing what was in store for me also
made it easier.
The challenge comes between the 4-6km marks as the incline
is significant and the duration of it makes it even more intense. This year I powered
up the hill and forced myself to maintain a steady pace and was surprised at
how many people I passed with ease, and stayed behind me the rest of the way. I
even had enough reserve energy to dial up the pace at the 8-9km mark to improve
my chances to finish strong with a very respectable time. The last 1km is
mostly downhill (after all the climbing you do have to come back to the
starting point in this loop race) and I turned it on and ran across the finish
line with a sub 1-hr time for the 10.8km distance.
It was during this race, the milestone occurred, in that I
crossed the 1000km mark for the year, and given the spotty routine from
previous years this was a major accomplishment. Even this year there were a few
very light months – most recently November, as I took a few weeks off after the
Detroit Marathon to rest and lost my motivation to run in the dark, cold, late
fall mornings. My heaviest workload was August as I was in full training mode
and ran over 250km but also had 3 other months of 100km+.
So as the year winds down, I will be heading south for the
holidays and plan to run every day when not driving and should be able to
record another 100km+ month. This sets up the goal of 1600km (1000 miles) for
2014 and one that is firmly within reach.
