It was another successful year for the Ottawa Army Run 2012
with over 8500 participants tackling the Half Marathon. The race started at 9 am the starting line
was littered with runners of varying capacity.
The start of the race was initiated by the firing of massive cannon that
let off a noise that could even be heard by the deaf. The participants flooded out of the starting
gates to embark on 21.1 kilometers of endurance, strength, and will power.
There are two reasons why I take part in this race. For starters, I love the cause and the
atmosphere. I take part in it yearly now
to demonstrate my admiration for our Canadian soldiers who risk their lives every
day for us. My second reason is because
I love the course itself. It is challenging
with multiple rolling hills, a minor venture through Rockliffe Parkway, and you
finish along one of the longest skating rinks in the world; the historic Rideau
Canal.
This year, I planned on analyzing my race through recording
my time per kilometer and my heart rate consistently. Unfortunately, at the start of the race, my
heart rate monitor slipped down my chest and to my abdomen where it became
useless. Unfortunate… but life goes on
and I decided to maintain my decision to monitor my time per kilometer
throughout the 21.1km run. Below is a
graph of my pace per kilometer which I recorded in a rudimentary fashion. Each kilometer was recorded as a lap,
therefore there should be 21 laps in total (the last lap was actually 1.1km
since I passed the finish line).
Additionally, I did not see the 1 km and 8 km marker so I divided the
entire 2 km lab by obtain an average pace for each distance.
As one can see, I started out too fast and burnt myself out
for the remainder of the run. I was
fatiguing at a pace of about 3% per kilometer throughout the run. Furthermore, the first 3 km were ran into a
headwind which did not help my case much either. Not only was I running to fast, I was pushing
myself into a strong headwind. Two
things of which indicate imminent doom in the endurance running world.
Slowest Kilometer 04:22
Fastest Kilometer 03:35
Average Pace 04:03
Furthermore,
my fastest pace was during the initial 2 kilometer, and it may have been faster
than that during the first kilometer as I did not happen to see the 1km marker
and this pace is an average over the first 2km.
My average pace is quite nice at 4:03, about an 11 second decrease from
last year. Although this is an
improvement, I wished for more but many factors influenced this including my
many races, and an existent injury which impeded on my training.
What can I
learn from the data I have obtained from the run? I need to slow down at the
start so that my fatigue rate is as close to zero as possible throughout the
entire run. I need to hold back and
settle into a nice pace which I can maintain.
Unfortunately I have yet to do that in a race from what I can tell. I did manage to come 61st overall
out of 8701 runners as reported by Sportstats.com so I should at least be excited
for accomplishing that. Furthermore, I completed this run with a nagging injury to my lower left leg which I believe is muscle strain to my flexor digitorum longus... one of the muscles which are involved in ankle inversion.
