Race report: Fall Classic Half Marathon

Date/Time: November 21, 2010, 8:39 am (delayed)
Weather: minus 5ish with a few slippery patches and light snow.
Distance: Half Marathon
Chip time: 1:29:06 (4:13 min/km pace)
Age Group: 9/104
Overall: 28/1008

Ah the Fall Classic, it should be better known as the winter classic this year. This must had been perhaps the coldest of the cold Fall Classics I’ve done over the years. The surprise elements of snow and some patches of slippery ice also decided to crash the party this year.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with my time. Didn’t quite PB or even PB in this particular race; however, given the circumstances I managed to pull off a respectable time no less and was super close!

For me, this race was more for adopting a new running technique with the Newton Terra Momentus (here’s a link to a review of the shoe: a good read for those interested).

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSG-Fg-VA9DQtyaUj1Ka8oERA-_uC-q1r94GUtpQuSTNlAg_s926oQxLsTijPyfJQWCeoNSEyONgttjIGZ49I8SauWeSzirH6sX0ymjIuoxjIJm7YijGobuLcnFqZe3Q3lBM7PY-sd6KMk/s400/IMG_0876.JPG

My soft goal was to go 1:28 and see how far I can keep up with Mr. Liam Harrap this year (last year I got dropped at 5k the first turnaround), but REALLY I really had absolutely no idea how the new shoe and technique would perform in a half marathon race. I’ve only used the shoe in 15ish casual training outings and maybe just a couple intervals speed workouts.


I’ve been cautious with this particular shoe because striking the ground with less surface area is painfully painful from a blister perspective (apologies for my comments, if they offend if not all the Newton lovers out there). I’ve been getting so many with this shoe!!!
I think the whole idea of forefoot and its link to barefoot running is still foreign to me. I didn’t quite get the scale of hype about it, until I saw practically everyone in the leading pack of the Ironman Canada wearing Newton Runners.

I’m more of a mid-sole striker, and really have adapted into it. My Racer ST4 Brooks running flats has always been the PB missile of choice this year.

Okay now for the exciting race details.

Writing this report two weeks late, I guess it won’t be as fresh as newly laid snow (oh yes, pun intended). It was great to see so many people doing this race I knew from the triclub. I wanted to keep up to Liam because he is so steady and fast. He is that person who can run as patient as you and can run that extra 10 second pace faster- a DEADLY combo for the perfect pace buddy.

The race was delayed 8 minutes for some odd reason. In the triclub office during a pre-race gathering, Liam and some other girls particularly called me out for being just WEAK. I guess I just was wearing too much clothes.

Shortly afterwards Liam intelligently recommended ditching the leg warmers entirely and just going with short shorts. On hindsight, what a great suggestion, but then the downside you wouldn’t have been able to see how ridiculous my attire was (fitting with the road conditions obstacles we had).

We held about 4 minute pace, but deep inside something just didn’t feel right for me. My left leg warmer falling down was the least of my problems. The penetrating lug of the Newton shoe just pounded into my layer of cold skin. It was just unbearable at the 5K marker. For those keen and interested, please scroll down to the photographical illustration at the bottom of this post.

Looking at Garmin, I just ended up taking the rest of the race gingerly at around the 4:12ish pace, which was my blister’s tolerable pain threshold. A few runners passed me, and that was perfectly fine.

I finished at around 1:29:10 gun time and felt awkward walking the blister out. I did manage to quickly crash fashionably late into the triclub Sunday’s swim workout and get a solid 500m swim and to ease up the pain in a nice dip into the hottub. This was probably the best decision I’ve made all day.

Special congrats to my pace buddy Liam for holding pace and posting a very impressive 1:24:43 and big congrats to Matt Reeve from the triclub finishing 3rd overall in the 10K race! Very impressive results along with many other notables.

My splits from Garmin

km Pace
1 3:59
2 3:59
3 3:51
4 4:15
5 3:53
6 4:14
7 4:14
8 4:20
21.1 4:12





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As UNCOOL as this might be, I think most people would enjoy this! =)

A MANblister! I did you the favour of not going for a zoom-in shot. =)

LESS is more.

Finally, a blog update!


I’ve been meaning to do FIVE but I just have been procrastinating. This picture I found pretty much sums up my less than kick-ass motivation of late. My downtime has mostly been reallocated to beauty naps.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/9-ways-to-work-less-and-do-more-2010-9?slop=1

The ante has been upped for searching quality naptime since I’ve started my day job. The only nap time I can take is after workhours. Hence, the lack of productivity on my blog.


At work, the line of work is still super secretive at the moment and the interesting assignments I’ve come across definitely passes time more quickly. It beats school work in a heartbeat back when I pretty much enjoyed napping in each and every class. No joke. Surprisingly, I’ve managed to survive being discrete about it and nobody in the office seems to mind when I take up to 3 different desks for my work (Okay two of the three were actually assigned to me for temporary desk-parking locations). =)

When it comes to that other form of blazing flash of fun and excitement (i.e. running, biking, and swimming), it’s been more like my physical training to become a ninja. Only weekends to I get to enjoy training in light and get my dose of vitamin D. However, I have also been struggling to get in my naps so I have to bank a lot of time during the weekends.

This has been an extremely busy week for me. Fall classic on Sunday (stayed tune for full race report - I’ve been meaning to write it up, but it seems like the time officials are spending just as much time as me procrastinating about correcting the times). I also had my convocation on Thursday (woohoo, it feels good to be done!), the temporary laid white stuff on the ground decided to join us for the big party, which allowed for some pretty cool pictures. Checkout that giant snowball being ricoheted off my sister.

For me, I know it might be super lamesauce going to the same convocation twice within two calendar years. Hey, last year for my Bachelors and hello again this year for my Masters. The chancellor looked at me funny and perhaps realized I was back again. Funny most of my friends still think it’s just MEH. But this time if felt REAL.

No more delaying the inevitable this time (oh right the blog update). I guess I’ve kinda exhausted that lifeline already.

Chancellor, President, and "Space Lady" Julie Payette was there to accept her 19th hon. degree.

Really!? I must admit Space Lady/Engineer/Musician is REALLY a bit of an underachiever. =)

Two Hundred Ninety Nine

To celebrate my last race in the 20-24 age group, I figured I can break the only PB I have yet to achieve this year and that is running the half marathon. It’s been an awesome 2010 year for me, and 2010 reasons to celebrate for sure. I've been busy mooching candy off little kids lately. =)

Source: http://rlv.zcache.com/personal_best_poster-p228634564171146027trma_400.jpg


I have already achieved quad-digits of running mileage in kilometres during training and racing this calendar year. But hey, I am still nowhere close to Marathon Maniac status...just yet. That’s beyond the scope for 2010.


My current PB in the half marathon is 1:28:32 and my latest marathon in Victoria halfway split was just 26 seconds shy from matching it! So with little convincing from Liam Harrap, I decided to join him for the UBC Fall Classic in only 19 days.

See? I believe good things are in stored. Just can’t lose, unless I don’t try.

Just another baby step to keep me distracted from that next big challenge coming up (299 days until Ironman Canada 2011!).

The Real World Welcomes Winston!

I was getting too comfortable.

I realized that being in the business of a full time triathlete, parts of the nitty gritty everyday job description involved doing the house chores and making sure I don’t miss my midday naps. However, there is this relentless magnetic field that somehow keeps revolving around the same question time and time after again. WinSistorm and my dad keep me honest, let’s say. They would chuck metal objects towards this question everyday...

When will you get a job and enter the REAL world, Winston?

I knew if I didn’t find a job soon that I would be stuck in this forever sticky mess of explaining myself during every family dinner conversations with regards to the hairline details of my current onrush on job hunting.

The patience pursuit towards global domination is not good enough it seems. I realized this. Try convincing this to your family for notions of approval and in return, they automatically return this funny look. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Source: http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/289508/568242.jpg

This week, I have started my job and the beginning chapters to the rest of my life! I’m pretty excited, I love taking in new challenges. Recently, dinner conversations are a lot more pleasing to the ears.

There’s a lot of top secret classified information for this job and I’m not suppose to spill the beans on as part of the agreement of my contract, not even to fellow employees not involved on the project. Don’t be surprised if you find out that I’m actually a secret spy working for a federal agency. ;)


What I can say is that it is a welcoming experience returning to the company, who once hired me as a coop student. I know the people, and they know me. It is a very tight knit group of people in the industry of marine structures. I think I’m starting to like it. Keep a secret for me and don’t tell this to my bosses tho. =)



Race report: Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon

Date/Time: October 10, 2010, 9:00 am
Weather: 10ish partly cloudy with sunshine
Distance: Marathon
Gun time: 3:07:55
10K: 41:48
Halfway: 1:28:58
30K: 2:08:56
Chip time: 3:07:53 (4:28 min/km pace)
Age Group: 6/59
Overall: 109/2643

No need to lookout anymore WORLD, a Winstorm has qualified for Boston with a gun time of 3:07:55! Yep, I’m so flipping delighted; I have to say this feeling is dangerously contiguous! You have been warned. =D

So this past weekend, I was pretty much all business going to Victoria. They say once you have completed your second marathon, you can usher in the new coveted title of becoming a true marathonER. I did my first marathon in this same race two years ago with a time of 3:22:34, but I was just a rookie and ran a near positive 20 minute split. Yuck! I just remember being remotely incapable of running for 6 weeks after that race and the excruciating pain of course.

Zee 42.2K Run

This year I enter the race with a little more confidence in my abilities because of the 2008 experience and I have done a lot more mileage base training in the previous 10 weeks. It really did pay off, I must admit. I ran a near positive 10 minute split this time, which is a huge improvement. Maybe next time I can cut it down to 5 minutes and eventually even-Steven. That would be an amazing improvement on my style points, but until that happens I’ll take whatever finishing time I can get.



I ran with Vince pretty much shoulder to shoulder from start to the halfway point. We were banking a lot of time on our desired pace of 4:20 per km. Vince’s plan was to run faster (sub 3hours), but my plan was to try and hold 4:20 pace as long as I physically could. 4:20s would take me in with an expected time of about 3 hours and 2 minutes with about 9 minutes of buffer time to accommodate for any undesired kinks in the game plan. Fortunately Vince had an awesome race, pretty much holding 4:10ish pace for the remaining half.



I realized by the halfway point, my powerful cardio engine was too much for my legs. The calves and hamstrings started twitching. From about 22K onwards, I felt like if I ran any faster, I might pull something and would risk a DNF. I eased off the killer pace and luckily didn’t walk and started to just run base on what the legs could hold for at a comfortable steady rhythm. Gentle feather feet, I was thinking to myself.

By 32k, I looked at Garmin and knew I just needed a sub 50 minute for the final 10k to reel in Boston. That was my motivation to finish strong. Thanks to Scott and Celeste for bringing me home at the final 1km point.

I enjoyed the final stretch and totally cruised the final 200m with the amazing cheers from the crowd.

km Pace

1 3:50
2 4:04

3 4:09

4 3:58

5 4:11

6 4:17
7 4:12
8 4:17
9 4:17
10 4:09 10k Split: 41:48 (4:11 pace)
11 4:13
12 4:14
13 4:15
14 4:12
15 4:09
16 4:10
17 4:13
18 4:14
19 4:08
20 4:14
21 4:09 Halfway: 1:28:58 (4:13 pace)
22 4:14
23 4:24
24 4:24
25 4:25
26 4:30
27 4:25
28 4:21
29 4:37
30 4:40 30k Split: 2:08:56 (4:18 pace)
31 4:44
32 4:49
33 4:47
34 4:47
35 4:48
36 4:47
37 4:51
38 5:00
39 4:59
40 4:41
41 4:41
42.2 4:41 Chip time: 3:07:53 (4:27 pace)

This was a fun race with music and kids trying to high five me. Joerg Winter and Jesse Chao, my hostel roomies did pretty awesome in the half, both running PBs. There were also many other tri-club members doing the half and full marathon. I think everyone I talked to managed to get a PB, awesome and congrats! Also congrats to Liam Harrap for placing third in his age group for the half marathon! And congrats to Andrew for signing up pretty much fashionably last minute and deciding he would shave off 1 hour of his previous PB. Special congrats to Mel and Vince for also qualifying for Boston!

Thanks again for all the support World, really appreciated it. =)



Thanksgiving Weekend Update

It’s Canadian thanksgiving over here, and I just wanted express how thankful I am to have great friends and family providing me with continuous support and encouragement for a Boston Qualifier. They have taught me, that it’s all right to tune out those little voices inside my head that say I CAN'T.

A taste for what to come.

This is what some had to say leading up to the Victoria Marathon this weekend.

Little WinSistorm showed off her mad Swedish written skills for an assignment and then had to memorize everything word for word:

Hej Lena! Det här är Winston, min bror. Han talar engelska och kantonesiska. Han är från Kanada. Han föddes den 24 Februari. Han är ingenjör. Han utexaminerades från UBC. Han är mycket atletisk. Han älskar att simma, cykla och springa. Deltar han i triathlon regelbundet. Hans dröm är att tävla i Boston Marathon och slutföra Ironman.

Mere minutes before the start on race morning, Andrew Wight said this in regards to qualifying for Boston:

You`ll qualify. You’re not just anybody, you are Winston Guo (pronounced Guwal).

Liam Harrap kindly pointed out to me during a training run this past week:

You`re not coming back from Victoria until you qualify.

Aye yes luckily thankfully I did not disappoint, did I mention I QUALIFIED for BOSTON!?! I’m beyond overjoyed. More to come in my official race report. =)

Pre Victoria Marathon Race Goodies

Personalized Winstorm-ized bib no.

Look out world, a Winstorm is forecast to hit Boston Qualifier in a of couple days.

Operation Organized Free Goodies at Work 

Jesse shows us the look of champions

Powerin' it up at the PowerBar with Vince

These next two pictures are dedicated to a friend, who shall remain nameless for the time being.