Mississauga 1/2 Marathon Race Report

So last weekend I ran the Mississauga 1/2 Marathon as a pace bunny for the first time. I haven't had a chance to post yet because of the new job etc.

So here's the report and some photos!

It was a BLAST! And one of the best parts was that I ran it with a new friend! Cathy and I both post on the message board for the Las Vegas Message board and since she was planning on Miss 1/2 I invited her to say over (she lives in London) and we ran together. Such FUN and both our DH's thought it was kinda wierd that we were doing this LOL

So the morning of the race Cathy and I get up at 5:30 and get ready. We head out at 6:30 for the race start at 7:30 ... but on the way we stopped at Tim's for our morning java. It took a little longer than expected but we're on our way.

We get to the cutoff off the highway and there's a HUGE line up of cars ... and race start is in approx 20 mins. Cathy says you better get going since you NEED to be there and she'll park and catch up. So I speed off and get to race start which has lots of signs for where to position. I'm wearing my RR hat with pink bunny ears that say 2;45 and I'm thinking I hope no one things I'm the 2:45 for the full LOL!!!

I get there and there are people waiting. I talk to a few of them including Cathy's friend Mira and another woman Donna that Cathy and I know from the LVM message board. And folks who say they are going to run with me.The race starts ... it takes 9 (count 'em) 9 minutes for us to get across the start line. Cathy was able to park the car and get to race start before the start luckily! We start off with 3 women and we're doing an R3/W2 strategy. Hit 1K right on pace. By 2K one woman says she can't keep up so she drops back and we carry on.

We hit 4K and 2 other women drop back and we pick up another woman. She's run 4 marathons but at Disney was pulled off the course. she stays with us for a while but then says she can't keep up and she drops back.

We pick up Rick who stays with us to the end. We hit 7K and we're a few seconds ahead of pace. At 10K we pick up another woman who's doing her first and really emotional. She is totally in her head and psyching herself out so we talk to her and she stays for a while. Shortly after 10K we go by a house blasting the Chariots of Fire theme so I couldn't resist and do a slo-mo run by. It's kinda cool at the water stations 'coz the high school volunteers all cheer for "the bunny". After a while Rick and Cathy start teasing me about my "princess" wave to the adoring crowds. LOL

That's Rick just behind me!

Now as I check my pace at each Km marker, we keep adding 10 secs a km despite trying to slow down. So by the time we hit 18K we're 2:30 ahead of pace. I talke to Rick who's doing really well and will DEFINITELY do a PB ... we decide that since he's the only one in our group we'll run him in ... and as we hit 20K we do our final walk break. We round the corner and Rick says "is that the finish?" we answer "yes" and he says "see ya" and sprints to the finish. Cathy and I continue and finish in 2:40:59 chip time ... 4 mins ahead of pace ... but not bad really.

Finish line ... see the quad muscle?

After the race Disney girl, emotional girl and Rick and his wife all come up to say thank you. It was just great!

Cheers

~ Shirley