Peter's Team Diabetes Triathlon (and formerly Marathon) Blog

On several of the web discussion boards that I follow and on some other runners' blogs it is common to post a Race Report so thought I would add one here.

This is the second time that I have participated in the Fredericton Half Marathon. First time was in May 2004 when I finished in roughly 2:20. This time I had hoped to beat that time.

The race is relatively small with about 600 total particpants in one of the three distances - full marathon (42.2k), half marathon (21.1k) or 10k.

Saturday evening I attended the pre-race pasta "carbo loading" dinner that was held at a local restaurant. The price of the meal is included in the registration fee so even though it wasn't the greatest, no complaints. I met some out of towners at the dinner, including a brother/sister from New Jersey (they work in New York City) who were really nice.

Race day was beautiful and sunny. Start/finish was at Queen's Square Park in downtown Fredericton. From there we ran along the trail system to a turnaround point near the Penniac bridge and back. The course was well signed and there were lots of people helping at water stations and doing traffic control at the dozen or so road crossings.

Just before the start I was chatting with Lloyd, a chap I know through Team Diabetes who is running the Dublin marathon in October 2006. His son Cody is a Type 1 diabetic. Also met fellow "bloggers" Christine and Danielle (Team D Honolulu 2006) who came to Fredericton to run the Half/10k respectively.

To keep me on track for a good finish time I was wearing a pace band that showed split times for each kilometer. I tried to keep my pace slow at the start but within a couple of kms I was about 1 minute ahead of pace time. The first 10 km went by very easily. I got to the halfway turnaround point and decided that I should test my blood sugars. I was a little low (4.6 mmol) so I ate one of the gel packs I was carrying and drank some extra gatorade hoping that this would be enough to sustain me as I started for home and as the temperatures started to rise. It was just before noon and the temps were forecast to get to 22c.

Chatted with some great folks along the route. One was a guy wearing a Dublin marathon hat. I mentioned that I had done Dublin a couple of years ago and we agreed that the Guinness tastes pretty good after that race! Ran for a bit with a Frederictonian now living in Toronto. He was doing the Half as part of a "home-and-home". His friend had come to T.O. to run a marathon last fall and this was the return visit. I saw a woman wearing a Team Diabetes jersey who was smokin' fast, running the Full marathon event. Saw her at the finish and found out she is from Perth-Andover NB and had run the Honolulu marathon in December 2005 as a part of Team D.

The second half of the run was a little tougher. I hit a bad patch somewhere around the 15k mark and had to really push myself psychologically to keep going at a reasonable pace. To that point I was still a minute ahead of schedule but after a couple of tough kilometers I had fallen a minute behind pace. Experienced runners say that in every race you always hit some tough sections and that you need to fight through them. To do that, having a mantra can be helpful. In my case, I kept saying, "I am fit, I've trained hard and this is just like any Sunday run in preparation for NYC".

At the 18km mark I started to perk up again and by 19km I was feeling strong. I wasn't able to make up the two minutes that I had lost between 15 and 18k but I picked up enough pace so as not to lose any more ground and got back roughly 30 seconds. I crossed the Walking Bridge (see an earlier post for a pic of the old train bridge) and on the other side there were a dozen or so people waiting and cheering on all runners. That was a nice boost.

The last 500m were great because there were a lot of folks out along the course - some just there to watch but mostly people who had finished earlier - supporting the later finishers. I could see the finish line time clock and realized that I wouldn't make it under 2:08:00 but that I would finish in under 2:08:30 so I broke into a smile and pushed hard to the line. Jill was there to snap a couple of pictures (she also was there for the start and at the 5k point) which I will be posting here on the blog. Was presented with my finisher's medal, a nice pewter momento, and then it was off to rehydrate, get some food, rejoice in the accomplishment and soak in the atmosphere. It's a really cool vibe that you feel in the air after an event like this.

After the race I tried to keep moving and stretch a bit but I ended up heading back to the sidelines just before the finish to cheer on the people who finished after me. I also tried to control my emotions because every time I stopped to think, I started to well up with tears. Not sure why, probably because I was thinking about how this is a big milestone on the journey to New York.

Thanks again to all my donors for getting me to the $5000 mark in advance of Sunday. Stay tuned to my blog for more updates.