Here's my mini race report! Sorry it's a little late...
Ran my 15K on Saturday evening. The theme for the evening was A Midsummer's Night so there were a few runners dressed up as elves, fairies, witches. It was great to see Kim and Mike again! Funny thing was, the volunteers there were wearing bright yellow shirts so I had a difficult time finding her
Usually the WISH shirts are easy to spot at races. We did meet up, got some photos and chatted before the start.
I should mention that early Saturday morning, I pulled the muscle in my left calf. Anyone ever get leg cramps at night? I get a few each year - I think it's random. The spasms are bad enough that I usually wake up and have residual pain for a day or so. So it was just dumb luck to get one the night before. Good thing the race was in the evening! I spent the day icing, heating and stretching my leg. It was more or less runable by 6:30 PM.
The course was an out and back through Tommy Thompson Park which is in the part of Toronto known as The Beaches. I'd never been there before and it's really a nice park - great views of the city. I'll have to go back with my camera to get some city view sunset photos! There were parts of the course I didn't like that much. I was warned that there was gravel but I guess I was expecting pebbles or maybe a track like surface. These were big rocks, a little slippery. I saw one person fall and I think she cut her knee and elbow but they did have an ambulance out there so she was able to get cleaned up.
I initally wanted a time of 1:30 or under but revised it to 1:45 because of the calf. I also decided it would be better to run 10/1 intervals and I also drafted behind a lot of runners. Not sure if that made a difference or not but there was a little bit of wind on the turnaround. I felt really good at the 10K mark so I decided to run the last 5K. I felt okay until I got to the last stretch and my calf decided it was enough. It started to tighten up but I was about a mile to the finish so I definitely wasn't going to stop! As I was rounding the corner to the final stretch, someone yelled out to me "Don't let the fairy beat you!!". That made me laugh and was enough to give me a boost for the final kick. I passed several runners on the way to the finish but I'm not sure if they were going really fast. I checked my Garmin download when I got home and it said that my top speed was 6:34 m/m. See I can run fast too
if only for several meters
I did get a PB of 1:34:52. I'm happy considering the stupid leg cramp. I also beat my McMillan time which predicted 1:39
Overall, I'd have to say it was a pretty good race. I'd like to try the 30K component next year but I'm not sure about running in the dark. I heard those runners had to dodge pedestrians and cyclists because the course wasn't closed.
GO! WISH Team GO! 
