Old legs can still run!

Fort Langley Half Marathon

Result 17^th Overall (but don't be mislead I was 9^th in AG) Chip: 1:30:25

Me, Liam, and Hugo looking like champs!

Woohoo this was first half marathon completed in over a year and also first race of this year. The rust has officially been brushed off. My last one was all the way back in October 2011 (hence old legs). A lot of my pb times now come with an asterisk since it's nearing almost two years since I achieved them. The time this time was nothing spectacular - I was about 2 minutes slower from my pb* and about one minute off from my time in 2011, but this course did have some killer elevation gains at 6 to 7km on 240^th Street and then killer elevation drop coming down on Armstrong Road. 

Checkout the Elevation profile

Since the race location was in the opposite direction of where my friends were, it made sense that I crashed at Liam’s place the night before. We woke up early morning and picked up Hugo. This was my first roadie trip to Fort Langley and the national historic site. Okie, I gotta admit, it was kind of cool to have a race start/finish inside a fort.

We felt pretty badass for not paying admission to the site...IM Switzerland also started inside a private beach

 
Local community races are always fun, and I haven’t done one in a long time. Contrary to my belief of course, it was odd that this race website’s key take-home message read as “This is the most important aspect that will affect you during the race:

[and in bold red…ouch to my eyes!]

Requirement that event participants deviating from marked course and event areas be disqualified from the event.”

Of course this made sense since there were so many short cuts if you did deviate. Trust me, the many placed cones made it nearly idiot-proof to not miss a turn. ;)

A lollipop course with a CCW loop.

Our chips were simply swipe cards minus some holes for us to tie them to our shoes

My race started strong but I died near the end. The first 15km, I was on a decent pace. The wheels came off after the 15km while running along the River Road parallel to the rail tracks. I'm trying to figure out a weak excuse - guess that particular part was too flat and mundane. If you stroll back to the top of the elevation profile - note the end hill was not pretty. 

I was yo-yoing throughout the race with some runners but what hurted most was when I got passed in the final kilometre by two older men, aged 50 and 60 years-old. I was really impressed. This means I still have hope.

Both Liam and Hugo did really well. Both sweeping the AG category and finishing a solid 2nd and 6th overall.

I got my work cut out. Race season 2013 bring it on! :)