Race report | 2008 ING Ottawa Half Marathon

While it's a bit late, here's my race report from the 2008 ING Ottawa Half Marathon...

Earliy Friday morning I boarded a flight to eventually get to Ottawa.  I decided to carry all of my things carry-on to avoid any nasty lost luggage issues.  Travel went uneventful and I even landed in Ottawa early.  The out-of-town CF "team" was put up in some of the University of Ottawa dorms.  Pretty nice facilities so close to downtown.  We all had to attend a welcome briefing followed by the pasta dinner.  The briefing was pretty standard; lots of hornblowing with little actual substance pertaining to the races that weekend.  I was suprised I stayed awake for the entire program.  The pasta dinner was pretty good as and old classmate of mine was the guest speaker: Capt Meagan McGrath.  Megean has, amoungst other adventers, climbed the Seven Summits and last year complete the Marathon des Sables.  This most recent exploit was the topic of her speech.  I got my fill of pasta, had some great endurance conversations with some of the folks at my table, and then headed back to my room for a good night's sleep.

Saturday was pretty much a waste for me.  While the 5K and 10K were raced that evening, I had nothing to do but pick-up my race packet.  First thing in the morning I ran a nice and easy five miler down the Rideau Canal in the morning and then headed over for breakfast. I visited the race expo rather early in the day, grabbed my race packet, looked around at the various booths, and then headed back into town (the race expo was down in Landsdown Park).  I tried to stay off my feet in order to be fresh for Sunday but with nothing much to do, I found myself walking all over town.  Later I headed to the closest theatre to watch the new Indy flick.  I tried to ensure I was drinking water all day long.

Race day, Sunday, started a half hour before my alarm even sounded.  Since the Half Marathon did not start until 9am, a full two hours after the marathon start, I forced myself to have a larger breakfast than I would normally have.  I find it very hard to eat much before a morning race.  Since I had prepared all my kit the night before, I was quick to get dressed and head out the door.  After spending hours putting together the perfect playlist for the race, I decided at the last minute to leave the iPod behind.

On the short walk over to the race village, I devoured the traditional banana and slurped down another bottle of water.  It was much warmer than the day before without any cloud cover;  I was instantly glad that I was wearing a singlet for this run.  Like most races I enter, I arrived far eariler than I needed to.  I hung around the village, had a few words with some other runners, actually did a brief warm-up, and then shuffled over to the corrals.  Since the Half Mary was the largest event of the weekend, the corrals were pretty packed.  The corral "system" at Ottawa was pretty well done; simply match the colour code on your race bib with the ballons lining each corral.  It was amazing how many people were unable to comprehend such a simple system!  Seeing all the weekend warriors, and even some walkers, pushing themselves to the front, I knew that the first miles would be a battle.

I crossed the starting line about a minute behind the gun start and I started the battle against the crowds.  It took probably two miles before I was able to run feely and realatively close to my goal pace.  I easily lost more than a minute in the first mile alone.  This was a shame because the first mile of the course went past the Parliment Buildings and other important capital buildings.

Just before Mile 2 the course crossed over to Hull and the next four miles of the course were rather insipid.  Hull had a ghost-town ghetto feeling.  In stark contrast from the Ottawa side of the course, there were generally few or no spectators.  Once into Hull I was free enough from the crowd to start chasing down my goal pace.  There was no way to make up for the lost time but I could maybe run the next 10+ miles at a good pace.  This was the only portion of the course with any real elevation change; just minor ups and downs really.  Somewhere near Mile 5 I popped my first gel.

At Mile 6 the course went back over the river into Ottawa.  The trip across the Alexandria Bridge was pretty cool, with the National Gallery on the left and Parliament on the right.  By this time I had given up trying to run at my goal pace... I just couldn't get there.  Instead I accepted the pace that I had been "stuck in" for the past three or four miles.  When entering Ottawa there were throngs of spectators.  There was also an entertainment stage featuring belly dancers, immediately followed by a water stop.  It seems that I wasn't the only male runner that seemed to inadvertantly run into the water stop as a result of watching the dancers.  In this same general area, the full marathon course re-joined our course.  It was hard to feel sorry for oneself when these folks had been running for an additonal two hours.

The rest of the race course parallels the Rideau Canal; down on the east side and back on the west.  This part of the race was now familiar to me.  This race included sponge spots and even a few misting stations.  As I regularly run in Florida, I felt sort of silly going in for a mist in 65F conditions but it still felt good.  I had my final gel at Mile 9.  The overpass loop at Mile 10 took us over the canal and back north towards the finish.  Recongnizing some runners in the pack I was running, I really wanted to push hard to get out in front of these guys - I just didn't have enough in the tank.  Throughout the course I was able to consistently pass people, even in the final miles of the race.  There certainly were people running past me but they seems to be the the Ironman/serious athlete-types.  In the final 200 feet I was able to give a final good surge.  I finihsed in a gun time of something like 1:38:11.  My Garmin told me I was about a minute faster.

Apart from the corral issue, my only complaint about the race was the quality or genre of the in-race entertainment.  Most of the "acts" were playing slower plodding stuff; nothing particuarly exciting or motivating.  Nothing against polka but Uncle Jim's Accordion Band was not quite what I need to keep me going during a longer run.

One thing that took some getting used to was the strict use of kilometric markers rather than mile markers.  While I am a Canadian and have used kilometres for many years, I've been running the past three or so years only using miles.  Luckily I had my Forerunner 305 with me to assist in pacing (in mins/mile).

Shortly after existing the finish area, some local friends caught up with me and we spend much of the day catching up on old times.  That evening I decided to hit the theatre again and see "Ironman."

My trip home was very uneventful... thankfully.  All my flights were again on time, no luggage lost, and I was home in time to spend a full afternoon with my family.

Two days later I find that my chip time was 1:37:13.6.  Pretty much what my Forerunner told me.  Unfortunatley not fast enough to qualify for the 2009 CF Nationals; I'll now have to run a sub 1:35 half sometime in the next year if I want to run in the Nationals next year.  Although maybe I'll just enter as a regular person and run the full marathon instead.