Mother nature spared us and the snow held off for at least one more day.
I checked. I was awake well before six on Sunday morning with race nerves, and I let the dog out to check and make sure there wasn’t a fresh blanket of October snow on the ground. It was ten below and everything was freshly frosted—but no snow.
Look, don’t let anyone tell you that shorter races are easier. I get that a simple five miler would struggle to compare to a marathon. I’ve run my share of both. But mentally you set expectations for yourself for both, too. You run different for a shorter race, knowing that you probably should be able to go a bit faster because the race is shorter. There is a mental expectation that roots itself in your heart and every step is weighted by that sense of how you want to show up at the finish, distance be damned.
By quarter to ten in the morning I was pacing around the start line, and when we finally set off just thirty minutes later to a underwhelming countdown I had done my warm up an abundance of anxious steps beforehand.
What can I tell you about the race?
One of our crew was running—he’s a fast guy, too—and he was doing the ten miler (two loops) so I had it in my mind to beat him across the line. They set out just fifteen minutes before us, and though it sounds like it should be a wash he finished just five minute after I did. But I beat him. Goal A.
I kept my five klick pace. Eight is not much longer than five, and doing a string of Park Runs over the summer I have a pretty tight lock on how it feels to run a fast (for me) five. I had been consistently hitting that thirty minute-ish mark, so I set out looking to lock into that same pace and bring in a five miler in similar style. Did that, too. Goal B.
I finished strong. I’ve been bagging it on some recent races. Running too hard at the start and then finding myself taking extra walks on the back half or slogging it over the finish line. I admit, I went out a little strong for what I’d been training to do—that race adrenaline is a trip—but I settled in after about one klick and made a steady pace to the end and through the big red arch. Goal C.
And yeah, I got a doughnut at the end. Mmm… Goal D.
Definitions
- august
- In the month of August where I live summer peaks and the days are often relatively hot (in the high 20s or low 30s) muggy, smokey and dry. Rain is infrequent, but when it arrives it comes in the form of drenching downpours and epic thunderstorms. We begin our runs earlier in the day because the local marathon runs late in the month and our training distances are maxing.
- goal
- In training lingo, a planned series of steps and milestones to reach some planned achievement: A race time. A race finish. A weekly mileage total. A streak. Or getting through an injury. Goals are personal and (for me) important.
- klick
- As a Canadian I run in metric. As a writer, I find the word kilometre clunky and clinical. I'll usually use the colloquial "klick" or "klicks" to substitute in for this.
- october
- Fully into autumn, October is a month of shifting seasons, short days, long shadows, and gorgeous sunsets. The cobwebs are hung on the eaves in preparation for halloween, and here in Canada we're running off Thanksgiving dinner for a couple weeks after a proper good meal mid-month.
- park run
- Just go online and find one. Every Saturday all over the world people meet up with their barcodes in hand to run a free semi-competitive five klick run, each local event locked to a route and run by volunteers. It's huge in the UK, but we've got a growing list in Canada and I logged one in Japan in 2025. I am slowly working my way to a milestone.
- race
- You train and train and train some more, and then for no clear reason you pay a bunch of money to run as fast as you possibly can at a very specific time with a bunch of strangers along a course lined with more strangers (or along paths lined with trees if you are an ultra runner) at the end of which you are handed a medal and a banana and a sense of achievement unlike anything you will feel again (until you sign up for your next one.)
- september
- The days are noticeably shorter when we realize that September is upon us. The post-summer routine kicks in and people are back to regular work schedules and kids are back in school. It can still be warm, but the hottest days are behind us and most of the biggest races of the year are in the rear view. We savour September knowing winter is too soon to come.
