UBC’s 6th Annual Run For Rural Medicine

Rural Folk need doctors too!

Friday after work I headed down to the running room and picked up my and the gff’s race packages from the running room. I wasn’t even sure I was registered (I hadn’t received a single email since) but my name was on the list, so I either picked up my race package, or stole some other Mitch LeBlanc’s race package. Either way, I was in!

I was excited, but not super excited, on account of having injured my leg the weekend before. I’d been off all week, and decided to pace for the gff rather than race. I was bummed, since it was going to be a nice test of my new fitness, and I was confident I could finally run sub 40. Anyway, that dream evaporated like a cloud on a sunny day, but I still went through the pre-race motions, pinning by number to my outfit, getting my socks ready, etc. Love the routine.

Since the race only started at 10 AM, we got up early, walked the dog in the sun, grabbed a coffee, whipped up a few scrambled eggs, and had a lovely relaxed morning of getting ready. Not like the terror-filled morning before the Six Foot Track, where your stomach is turning so hard you can hear screeching tires, and it’s all you can do to not shatter your teeth you’re shivering so hard from nerves and fear.

We drove to the race (probably unnecessary, but whatever) and got there in plenty of time. I did a bit of running around, trying to get the foot to warm up. It felt totally fine, no pain at all! Was very pleased.

The race was very small (140 runners registered) and it was a nice laid back race. The course was a bit convoluted, to keep it mostly along the beach, although around the 5 km mark it headed up towards UBC along the road… not super ideal. More on this later. Here is the course we ran:

Pretty much flat and awesome aside from that tiny road section.

So the race started out fine. We ran nearly perfect pace throughout, roughly aiming for a 4:55 or so on the way out and hoping to get faster on the way back. We let the entire pack run ahead in the first 100 m, as the pack is wont to do, and just maintained throughout. The gff did extremely well, maintained her pace, pushed really hard, and managed to run a sub 50 minute PB. I was trying to get her to keep catching the next person out in front, but there were so few runners that it was hard! In the end I just yelled at her (“Don’t you DARE slow down!”) and that seemed to do the trick. She was exhausted at the finish, and tired for the next couple days, so I was happy that she gave it her all.

Me? Well, I felt pretty good, but at around the 5 km mark I must have miss-stepped, because I tweaked my calf a bit, and it hurt for the rest of the run. I was very upset at the idea of having undone a week’s worth of rest… In the end, it felt pretty good the next day, and so I didn’t undo ALL of my rest. I hope that’s a sign that I should be able to get over the injury before the Tenderfoot.

Here’s some photos someone posted from the race. You can see it’s a chill atmosphere, and I totally recommend coming out and running it next year, if you get the chance. A nice warm up 10 km for the Sun Run or the BMO, to kick off the season.

https://picasaweb.google.com/maria.trinh/VancouverRunForRuralMedicine2011?feat=directlink&fgl=true&pli=1#

Running is life.

Mitch