Race Review: Boundary Bay Half Marathon

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I was having some trouble wrapping my mind around this race. I haven't really been in race-mode since the Surrey Marathon, maybe that's why I completely spaced about package pickup. Thankfully my husband works near White Rock and I remembered just as he was heading home on Friday.

On Saturday, I had a really busy day. I normally wouldn't go for a run on the day prior to a race but because of #NovRunStreak , I had to fit one in, so I did a short 4k on the treadmill. Next up, I was off to meet a friend for a shopping date. Last week, she asked me to be her bridesmaid because she is getting married next year. We went for her 1st dress shopping appointment, and can you believe it? She said yes to the very 1st dress! Next up, we headed to the Canucks game. It was a nice day but I was really tired when we got home and even though I knew we were going to get an extra hour of sleep with Daylight Savings Time, I headed to bed pretty early, around 10:00PM. Having said that, I have a toddler who has no concept of DST and something known as "sleeping in", so he got up at the time he usually would, except 1 hour earlier.

Even though I was tired, it actually felt pretty late to be getting up for a race. It was about 6:30AM and the race was due to start at 8:30AM. I had set everything out the night before and after a couple times changing my mind about what to wear I was pretty much ready to go. I opted to wear a t-shirt and a lulu tank instead of the long sleeve I had originally planned on. It was pretty foggy at my house when I left so I wasn't sure what the weather was going to be like by the time I reached Tsawwassen/Delta. I very quickly realized that maybe I should have brought that long sleeve as the temperature continued to drop on my drive, at one point dropping below 0 degrees Celsius. Brrrr! Thankfully when I arrived it was 5 degrees and sunny.

I hadn't changed the clock back yet.

I was glad to find my blue BMO marathon gloves in the car but unfortunately I had no sunglasses. Still, there are worse things that could happen. I did this very same race last year and when I went to get out of the car to head to the start line, I noticed a very large hole in the crotch area of my pants... yup. I did not have an extra pair of pants so I took a safety pin off my bib and pinned my pants and hoped for the best. So if having no sunglasses was the worst that happened, I was glad.

I wore my Movember shwings:

Like them? You can still win some here!

As I stood there shivering and looking at the start line, I'll admit I was still feeling pretty nervous. I think this might be the most unprepared I have ever felt for a race. I hadn't done a run over 10km since the marathon and I didn't spend a lot of time resting and hydrating prior to the race.

It was such a beautiful day though, worst case it was just another training run right? Ronald McDonald lead the warm-up and now I regret not trying to get a picture with him for the blog because he wasn't there at the finish line. It would have been cool if he was handing out the medals...

No joke: I was scared of Ronald McDonald as a child, and honestly he still kind of freaks me out.
Photo Credit: from the Try Events FB Page

After the warm-up, which really didn't seem to leave anyone feeling very warm, it was time to get started. As usual, for this race organization, they had us start in one large group, all the marathoners, halfers, 10kers, and 5kers.


Photo Credit: from the Try Events FB Page

I am the 3 person in from the right-hand side of the photo, you can spot me with my bright blue BMO gloves! I felt okay off the start though I definitely had some pacing issues. Because I've been doing shorter faster distances since the marathon and practically no long runs, I started much faster than I should have. I have tendency to do that in races, but this was even faster that I have in the past, probably close to 5:00-5:15/km pace. I realized by kilometer 2 that this strategy, which was completely unintentional, was not going to work at all. I tried to slow down and find some sort of rhythm. At this point we were leaving the residential area near the beginning of the race and heading back up onto the dykes. I liked this race last year because it is almost completely flat. I'm not a huge fan of running on packed gravel, even though it is better for my knees, I just prefer to run on the road. But as a result, I have 0 knee pain after the race when I normally would. Last year, this was only my 4th half marathon, and at the time it was one of my favorites. I didn't feel the same way this year (now on my 21st half marathon). I couldn't find a pace that I liked and even though the weather was unbelievable, it wasn't even that windy on the water, I wasn't feeling inspired.

It was at this point that I started to feel overwhelmingly nauseous. My family has been fighting the flu for a couple of weeks and I'm the type of person who usually skips the head cold part of it and experiences all the other symptoms. I had felt okay prior to the race though, it came out of nowhere and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately moved to the side of the course and tried to collect myself. I was feeling dizzy and I remembered that I had put an emergency gravol (anti-nausea tablet) in my running pouch not too long ago. I started digging and thankfully found it pretty quickly. I briefly considered that it might make me feel tired and sluggish and weighed my options, I knew that anything would be better than having the constant urge to vomit while running, so I took it. It took a long time to kick in... I took it around the 4th kilometer and I didn't feel any relief until the 11th kilometer, at which point yes I begun to feel sleepy.

Once I reach a turnaround and I'm in the second half of a race, I tend to feel a lot better emotionally as well. There's something that feels good about being "on your way back". Even though I wasn't feeling 100%, I reasoned with myself that I only had 9 or so kilometers left, and that wouldn't be so bad. I trudged along and kept scanning the horizon for the red tent (1 of only 2 water stations) that I knew was the 10km turnaround and would mark 5km left for me. It was hidden behind a large tree so I didn't see it until I was literally right next to it. I didn't stop for water at either stop as I had my hydration pack. The last 5km weren't fast at all, I was having trouble maintaining a 6:40/km pace, what a drastic change from the beginning of the race.

I'm always happy to see the finish line, but at this race in particular, I was ecstatic to be almost done, not that you can tell from this face, haha.

Photo Credit: from the Try Events FB Page

I couldn't believe how tired I was. I had felt that this wouldn't be as hard having just run a full marathon only a month prior. It definitely did not feel as far but I was pretty exhausted. I think my lack of preparation and long runs leading up to the race played a huge role in this. I'm still very much looking forward to the Wine and Dine Half Marathon in Walt Disney World on Saturday and I'm excited to be doing a race just for the fun of it. Literally, it doesn't get more fun than a race at Disney.

My time was 2:25:37. There seems to be some discrepancy with the timing this year, a lot of people commented on it on their FaceBook page. I can't specifically comment on this because I started my watch late so I expected there to be some difference. My time at this event last year was 2:26:23. It is my 3rd worst half time this year. 

Photo Credit: from the Try Events FB Page

From now on my race reviews will have the following summaries, in case you're looking for a quick reference as to the quality of a particular race.

Package Pickup/Expo:
I have had a relatively decent experience in previous years picking up packages for Try Events various races but this time it was beyond ridiculous. I had my husband pick it up as he was nearby. It opened at 4:00PM on Friday afternoon at the White Rock Running Room (It was also open on Saturday during the day). It was lined up around the store and out the door. Usually they have different lines for Half/Marathon/10k/5k, sometimes distances are combined. This year there was only 1 line and there were several people picking up multiple packages, 1 person was picking up upwards of 30 packages. I understand that sometimes that's how it is for teams etc. If this is the case, they should be helped by a separate person to keep the line moving or at least have to alternate between the line of people and the person picking up multiple packages. It took 45 minutes+ to pick up my package. There is never an expo for these local races though they often give out several samples at package pickup.

Price/Value: $64.50
I registered in the last month and they do have price tiers, the earlier you register, the cheaper it is. I will say they have improved their technical shirts this year. In the previous Try Events races I have done, the shirts have been unflattering and I really disliked the material. They've obviously switched to a new provider, and it is a huge improvement, I may actually wear this shirt. You do get a decent medal and usually a free photo of yourself. There are no photos available for purchase but they post them on their FaceBook page and from what I can tell they get about 90% of the participants. I've only ever not gotten a photo at one race, and I've done 6 of them. The post-race food this year was lacking especially in comparison to some of the other races they do. I only had an orange. They didn't have chocolate milk, I thought for sure because McDonalds was a sponsor, that there would be Milk 2 Go.

Aid Stations: There are only 2, they have water and (I believe) Cytomax. If you are like me and you like to have water often, you definitely need to carry your own.

Course Difficulty: Easy. If you're looking for a PR course and don't mind the possibility of some wind a rain, this is the course for you. It is almost completely flat.

Medals: Love them, they're always simple but nice.