Me and Big George!

So Georges Laraque is a player in the NHL who used to play for the Edmonton Oilers. He is basically a fighter but still he is a pro athlete. Anyway, he and I have a long history of crossing each other's path without having ever met.

The first time we interacted was about 7 years ago. He was doing a call in radio show for the sports talk radio station in Edmonton. I decided to call in and ask him if he ever prearranged to fight people. For example, if the night before a game with Toronto he calls up Darcy Tucker and is like "Hey, so you want to fight me in the second period tomorrow?" So anyway, he called me an idiot on the radio and the next day my question was reprinted in the Edmonton Sun as the stupidest question of the night.

Then I moved away to Ontario for two years and then moved back to Edmonton. I had become something of a workout nut and guess who worked out at the same gym? That's right, Georges Laraque. I saw him all the time in my gym but we never spoke.

So anyway, I'm standing in line waiting for the Edmonton 10K to start and guess who I see about five feet away from me? Well the race started and he took off. But guess what? My official finishing time, 55:05 (chip time) was only 24 seconds behind Big George, the toughest guy in the NHL.

That was AWESOME!

55:14! It all went according to plan. First of all, I didn't really sleep well at all last night. I thought I would but I didn't. I don't think I fell into a restless sleep until around 130AM. Not great to have two nights of no sleep before a race but since the race doesn't start until 10AM I could still sleep until 8AM so it was all good.

Riding the subway to the race with my number pinned to my shirt felt kind of weird. At least a couple of other runners eventually got on. Oh yeah, also had to run the race with my car keys and change for the subway home jingling in my pocket...at least they heard me coming.

And I did run them down. Basically, I started slow and it seemed like everybody passed me. I was running with the 60 minute pace bunny and we were both like "alot of fast people running today..." (both of us knew we would catch them later...) People were passing me at 2km who already were sweating and breathing hard like that scene in "Titanic"...I was surprised at how long it took for people to start dropping off though. I only started passing them at about the 4-5km mark, and then only 2-3 at a time.

I kept telling myself to "go slow", so that I would have some juice left for the final kilometer. Spectators were standing by the road and spraying us with hoses and squirt guns, which helped alot.

The course is basically straight and has only one minor hill at about the 7.5 km mark and that is where they started dropping out. I could see the group in the distance on the little hill. People were literally stopping, not just slowing down.

I finally passed the final group in the last 1.5 km. It felt awesome blowing by coins and keys jingling and everything. That's right...fear the ringing beast.

The final sprint was fun too. My power songs "Resurrection" from "The Passion of the Christ" and "My Name is Lincoln" from "The Island" brought me home. And I out sprinted some guy who kicked past me at the 8 km mark.

I'll post my official time once its posted on the race website.

The Day Before the Race

The race is tomorrow! I can't stop thinking about it. My stomach is a little nervous.

Today we flew from Victoria to Edmonton. Apparently you are supposed to get your good night's sleep 2 nights before the race so that if you are too nervous to sleep the night before you are still okay. However, we had to get up at 4AM to make a 7AM flight this morning...so much for a good night's sleep. I'm so tired now I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping tonight though.

After we arrived in Edmonton, I went downtown to register. There is a big tent with everybody's name posted with their entry number. You tell a volunteer your number and they get your gear for you. My gear bag includes: a cool free polyester running shirt (nice!), an entry number to pin on my shirt (#943), and an RF ID tag that you clip to your shoe so your race time is accurate ("chip time" instead of "gun time"). I also got a free 500 ml of Running Room water and a Powerbar. All this before a single kilometer is run!

My strategy is to start off relatively slowly for the first kilometer (6 minutes for the first kilometer) then pick up to an easy pace (5:45-5:30/kilometer) for kilometers 2-9, and finish the last kilometer in 4:30 or faster. It will take some discpline to slow down at first because I suspect alot of people are going to start out too fast and be passing me at first, so the temptation will be to charge out after them. But I am confident that I will catch the majority of them, and I wasn't going to keep up with the ones I can't catch anyway.

Anyway, thats the plan. We'll see how it plays out once the racing starts.....

14 Days to the Race!

Not long ago, I went for a 10K training run with my wife's Uncle Rob. Before we ran, he asked if I was going to stretch. "You never see race horses stretch," I joked. "That's why their careers are so short," he shot back.

Later I developed a severe pain in my left knee. The injury cost me two weeks of running, during which time I could feel the fitness drain out of my body. After the pain subsided, I tried to run again, only to have the problem recur within 2km. I was scared and frustrated that I would never run again.

My brother Aaron competes in triathalons. So I decided to ask his opinion. "It sounds like an iliotibial band syndrome," he pointed out, "Basically you need to stretch and use an IT band roller." A visit to a physiotherapist who also happened to be the Canadian 10K cross country champion confirmed the diagnosis. The solution: stretching along with ice.

I call it my "aftercare", the stretching, yoga, rolling and icing that I do after every run. I now spend more time on my aftercare than I do running.