Victoria Marathon

SixinSixty©

Determination, fortitude, courage, and consistency

(Two Cross Country and four running marathons at 60)

Hi All:

Victoria Marathon #6 was my sixth and final marathon for the year. I completed the sixth marathon a month and half before my 61st birthday.

A number of you have been inquiring about my update. I have started XCsking and the time seems to slip by so quickly. In any case, I completed the Victoria Marathon in 3:29:17. If I was two seconds faster I would have achieved another personal best. I find it amazing that the times were so close to the Treherne Marathon.

I flew into Victoria about three days before the race to rest for the event. I needed the rest because I had just completed the Treherne Marathon three weeks prior to Victoria . The training between the races was more about maintaining my fitness level then anything else.

The day of the race was around 10C with overcast which made me think about wearing my jacket during the race. However, my warm up indicated that I wouldn’t need the jacket. A couple of minutes before the race I was wearing my T-shirt and shorts only.

I went into this race with no injuries. I believe this is due to my regular routine of 20 minute stretches each morning, weight training at the gym of once or twice a week and the discipline of maintaining the correct balance of base and intensity training.

The Victoria course is a pleasant course with a route taking through the older part of downtown and then along the water front through a park and back along the water front to the finish line. The course has a number of rolling hills and a number of turns as you pass through the city. The new scenery helped keep me occupied during the 42 km distance.

My goal going into this race was to break a time of 3:20. I positioned myself in the running field of runners so that I was slightly behind the 3:20 pace bunny. During most of the race I maintained a distance of about a 100 meters behind the pace bunny. I would loss distance each time I slowed down at each water station. However I was able to close the distance 1km later.

According to my watch I was on track of coming close to breaking a time of 3:20. However in the last 5km my right foot started to cramp. This is the foot that I have been having problems with all through the year. Due to the cramping I had to cut back my 4:50 pace back to a 5:45 to complete the last 5km. I did notice that if I push down really hard the cramping would ago for about 300-400 meters but then it would come back. I repeated this several time in the last 3km. In spite of the cramping in the last few km I was excited to think that this was my 6th and final race of the year with a possibility of achieving another personal best. As I approached the finish line I did notice a gun time of 3:29:45. However, I was to fatigued to think that if I sprinted the last 100 meters I would have broken another personal time.

I finished this race being extremely fatigued and exhausted. I walked through food line and started eating fruit and drinking water. After some nourishment I changed into dry clothes because I was cooling down fast and I was spent. It was interesting to note that my face was covered with little pebbles of white salt due the perspiration and drying affect.

This finishes my odyssey for this year and I would like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement.

Victoria Marathon