It was an incredible day yesterday (Sept 11, 2011)!  The big hills and the heat contributed to making the marathon a particularly challenging day.

My goal was to try to beat my June 2011 Manitoba Marathon time of 4:48:32.  Working against me getting this goal was the course – known to be much hillier than the completely flat MB Marathon – and the heat wave (29 degrees foretasted) which is very uncharacteristic of this time of year.  Working for me was my recent weight loss (25 lbs total, 21 lbs since the MB Marathon) and my consistent training which included long runs of 40 and 50 kms.  I also know that I didn’t want to work too hard as “running a fast marathon” is not actually my goal but it would be difficult to hold back.

I felt great for much of the race.  I attacked the accents and flew down the descents (adjectives are all relative to me of course).  I covered the first 1/2 in 1:55 making me very excited that I could either (a) make it under 4 hours or (b) take off 60 min from my time if I went just a little faster.  However, at about 10 kms to go, I felt my strength and speed to start to slip.

The last 5 kms I believe to be about the hardest kms I’ve run in a long time.  I worked hard to keep moving but I was starting to lose it.  I lost much time in those last 5-10 kms but am proud to be able to say that I gave it my all and left everything on the course.

While I don’t have an official time yet, my time was about 4:16:30 which beat my MB Marathon time by about 32 minutes.  This is huge!  Especially considering that this course is much tougher.

A runner I met at the finish line, who has run both races regularly, said he has never come close to meeting his MB Mar. time in Treherne due to how tough it is.  This is really exciting!  I wonder if I would have broken 4 hours if this was again the MB Marathon course.
I wonder how much better I will do next year at the MB Marathon with more training and more weight loss (15 lbs less for sure).

I filmed a quick video talking about the experience: