Race Report – Toronto Half Marathon 2012

Preparation for the race started in January, which is when we all signed up.  We try to pick race places and times of the year so that the chance of it being warm is minimal.  So traveling from northeast Ohio to Toronto Canada in early May sounded great.  The day started off with almost perfect weather conditions.  If they would have stayed that way, it would have been wonderful, but needless to say, the sun rose more and it got a little warmer.  I think the conditions during most of the race hovered around 62 degrees F.  That is warm for a 13.1 mile run for me, though most of the time those conditions are considered ideal and beautiful.  I have to admit that going in to the race, I was confident that I could finish at or around my previous finishing times, but I didn’t think that I had enough back log of training to get myself into PR territory.  The race was run well in my opinion and I was thankful for the shuttle from the hotel to the start line.  This was the first half marathon I’ve run where the start isn’t in the same location as the finish, so the shuttle back to the hotel was also a great aspect of the race organization.  The actual race itself started pretty calm and uneventful.  There were not as many people in this race as had been in several of the previous races, so the lack of commotion actually was relaxing.  After the first water stop, P and I lost each other for almost a mile and I really thought I’d be running the entire race on my own.  However, I went up on a random curb for one final look around and saw her and we stayed together until around mile 8.5 when she went on ahead.  I have to admit that I didn’t think that marking the course in KM instead of miles would matter much, and it didn’t, until around the last 5k.  I guess I don’t have 5k calibrated in my mind enough to judge how much longer (distance and time) I have to go when I am drained (and slightly hurting) from the 10 miles I just ran to get up to that point.  All in all, it was a good race and we did get to see a lot of Toronto while running, since it was primarily on the main strip and ended at the water front.  As predicted, I didn’t get a PR, but I did log my second fasted time.  Five half marathons down.  -A