Tuesday, April 30, 2013

CheapRunnerRhoda's Forest City Road Race Recap

Posted by Anonymous
As CRM mentioned yesterday all 3 Cheaprunners took place in the Forest City Road Race on Sunday, April 28th.  It was a beautiful morning and what better to do on a morning like that than run a half marathon!

First I am going to start with Saturday night and our Carb loading dinner.  We decided it was an appropriate night to go for some pasta at spageddy eddy's.


It was tough to decide with all the delicious options on the menu!





I finally decided on the mazza mazza eddy with spagetti noodles and meatballs.

I don't think this pic does this big ol' bowl of spagetti justice in showing the size but trust me when I say, it was a huge bowl of spagetti and totally delish!


We all enjoyed and were good and full when we left!  All set for Sunday!

After a pretty decent sleep for the night before a race (up at 6, race started at 8), I started with what has become my pre-race morning rituals.  Got the pot of coffee brewing while I got dressed and got my bag packed for the morning.  The 2 CRM's showed up around 7:20, I grabbed a Clif Bar, and we were off to the races!  We arrived downtown, found a great spot to park. Had just the right amount of time to spare to do a few stretches and takes some pics!




8am came and it was go time!  I felt a little overwhelmed at the start and couldn't get a good pace going until almost the .5 km mark.  Although, I am not super fast like CRM, I still should have listened to him and moved closer to the starting line. 
Anyways, after the first 2 km, I started to feel really good, and settled into a 4:56 pace.  I was able to keep that pace the whole way.  My goal was to finish under 1:45 so I knew I needed to stay under 5:00/km.  This is a great race for residents of London to show their support, as it winds through a few different neighbourhoods, and that they do.  There were plenty of people out on the porches or at the curb cheering us all on, and at the water/eload stations the volunteers were always great with shouting out words of encouragement.  It was soooo nice to hear!  This race offerred water and eload/gatorade at all the stations along the way, I think I counted 8.  It was great because they would always shout out what they were passing out so you could grab the right liquid and not take eload when you wanted water.  I didn't end up stopping at any stations because I brought my own water and gels which turned out great for me!  I felt pretty good throughout this whole race until I hit km 19, then I started to bonk out.  I could feel my pace slowing down, I just kept telling myself "don't slow down now", and pushed myself.  About half a km from the finish line, I saw my fans (Michelle, the kids, sister-in-law and her kids) and hearing them cheer me on gave me enough of a boost to pick up some speed and race to the finish line! 

I ended with a finish time of 1:44:11 (pace of 4:55 as per my Nike watch) so I was happy enough with that!  No PR this race but I still achieved my goal for the race!


At the finish line, they were handing out water and food.  We were handed a paper bag before we entered the food tent to put our snacks in, which I thought was a great idea!  There was yogurt, bananas, rice krispy squares and some sort of fruity flatbread.  No reason for anyone to go hungry after this race.  Also, at the expo, the day before, each runner was given a ticket for a free slice of Dominos pizza after the race.  Overall, I think this is a very well organized race and has become my favorite one in London!  Thanks Forest City Road Races!


5 comments:

  1. You did great R!!! But you forgot to mention that you were the 17th overall female! Awesome accomplishment, way to go Rhodes :)

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  2. Congradulations! It's always nice when you set a goal and achieve it.

    Ahh spagedy eddys, man it's been a long time since I've been there or even thought of it really. And Michelle may have been the one to introduce me to it.

    Jenn

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  3. Thank you! She introduced me also! I would have never found that place. Love it there!

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  4. Just call me tour guide Michelle...LOL

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