It's been a busy weekend.....
Friday - I barely even remember Friday, it feels so long ago. I'm pretty sure I did nothing of note all day (not even dishes). I know I went for a 6km race-pace run with Mika in the evening. It was really humid and more difficult than I was anticipating as a result. Mika was a great running partner. She usually gets too excited at the beginning and pulls a lot, but after a kilometre or so, she calms down. Towards the end, I think she was even getting a bit tired and I had to encourage her a bit. Maybe she's a bit out of shape. We arrived home about 10 seconds before it started to rain - talk about luck.
Saturday morning was supposed to be the ride to St-Felix with Les Gazelles; however, Friday night, the group leader sent out an email about the weather forecast. They were calling for thundershowers with heavy rain, so she decided she wasn't going, as did several other ladies. I also decided not to go, owing partially to the weather but mostly to my race on Sunday. But, when I woke up on Saturday, the weather was beautiful. No rain to be had. I was really annoyed, both with myself for not going and with the stupid weather forecast for being completely wrong. I'm going to try to make up the ride tomorrow, depending on how my legs feel. If not, it'll be Thursday. After Chris got back from his football game, we had some errands to run, then I left for Lac Brome. Chris wasn't able to come with me to the race because he had to leave Sunday morning for his sea survival course in B.C. In Lac Brome, I stayed with Chris' aunt, uncle and cousins, and I arrived at their house around 8pm. We had duck/chicken burgers for dinner (they raise ducks) and they were quite good.
This morning (Sunday), I was up at 6:30 for my race. The race organizers asked all participants to be there by 7:30 (even though the race started at 9), so I was there plenty early. I picked up my race packet, which included an awesome technical T-shirt. After a lot of waiting around, we finally got started. There were 1028 participants, so the starting line was quite crowded. I started towards the back because I didn't want to get trampled by all the hard-core superfast runners. One bummer, though - my Garmin wasn't working. It must have been turned on accidentally in my bag because the battery was completely dead. I was a little worried about not having it, especially from a pacing perspective, but there was nothing I could do.
The route for this race did not have any laps, thank goodness. Basically, you run around Lac Brome, as the name of the race implies. It was a beautiful course, the weather was warm and sunny and the atmosphere was quite friendly, with a good mix of French and English. The first kilometre flew by, but that's because we hadn't hit the hills yet. This course was tough. It's basically 20km of rolling hills with one killer hill at km14. Chris' aunt and cousins were at the half-way point to cheer me on and all the volunteers were very encouraging too. At 10km, my time was 1:04 and I was thrilled.
Unfortunately, I started to feel really dizzy around km12 and I had to walk for a bit. I think I was getting dehydrated because the weather had warmed up considerably by this point. I stopped at every aid station in the second half and grabbed Gatorade every time. I also took a lot of walking breaks because the heat was so exhausting. I think my pace in the first half may have been a little too intense (this is where the Garmin would have helped). I did finally make it to the finish line and the clock read 2:16. I was really happy that I broke 2:20 but I was kinda hoping to break 2:15. Turns out, I actually did. Because there were so many people at the starting line, there was a big lag between the gun time and the chip time for the people in the back. For me, it was 2:15:15 between when I passed the starting line and when I crossed the finish line, so that's the time I'm going with. After the race, I drank only water and juice for the first hour or so. I did not want to relive what happened last week (and it worked!).
When I got back to Bagotville this evening, there was a surprise for me (and not a good one). When Chris left this morning, he didn't close the back door. It's a good thing we don't live in a sketchy neighbourhood. Luckily, Kona was shut in her room, so she couldn't escape and I guess the cat (Jester) is too lazy to go anywhere because he was still here. But Mika was gone. Of course, it had to be the dog that likes to run away in the first place and of course, it had to be the week when her ID tag was broken and the new one hadn't arrived yet. I biked around the neighbourhood frantically on Chris' delapidated bike, calling her name, with no luck. One guy I talked to suggested calling the military police (MPs, as we call them), which I did when I got home. Thankfully, someone in the PMQs found her, caught her and called it in. I went over to their house and sure enough, there she was. She didn't get very far, but we're surrounded on two sides by 90km/h roads and I was worried she might have been kershmucked by a car. I gave the guy who found her a jam of my homemade strawberry jam as a thank you for looking after her. I have no idea how long she'd been gone since Chris left at 9am and I didn't get home until almost 8pm. I'm so thankful to have her home, safe and sound. And let me tell you, Chris got an earful when he called.
That's it for today because I'm exhausted and I want to go to sleep!
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