Race re-cap: Mother's Day Run 5K (Yellowknife, Northwest Territories)

In my ongoing effort to run a race in every Canadian province and territory, I ran the Mother's Day Run 5k in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.  In doing so I've discovered yet another wonderful Canadian city.  Yellowknife is unique in that it is situated just outside the Arctic Circle and the tree line.  Winters in Yellowknife are long and cold... much like Saskatchewan (the difference is the severity of winter).

I didn't go for a personal best--after last week's half marathon, I wasn't exactly recovered (a fact that was reinforced about 250 metres in to the race when I back off a bit).

I ran a pretty steady 4:59/k pace and finished pretty strong.

The race took place on the Frame Lake Trail near City Hall.  Although the trail was paved, the elevation profile had about 86 metres of uphill, including a few steep ascents.  I noted on my walk-through on Saturday that the trail was at maximum elevation around 196 metres (less than half of Saskatoon), yet despite this I found the air to be thinner than Saskatoon, though not quite as thin as Banff.  It's possible that I imagined this, but I found it particularly difficult to run faster than 4:45/k without getting winded.

Review and Recap of the Saskatoon Hypothermic Half Marathon

Had fun running the Hypothermic Half Marathon today. #running #halfmarathon #yxe

A photo posted by John (@misterspalding) on Feb 7, 2016 at 9:25am PST

When you hear the word "hypothermic" you think cold, right?  If you live in Canada the word probably doesn't startle you very much, but it still carries weight.  Today's Hypothermic Half Marathon kicked off at 9am with a temperature of -4 C.

So here's an entry I made on my iPhone before the race:

Seventeen minutes to the start and there's barely anybody here.  The trail along Spadina Crescent seems to have ice sheets on it--not surprising given that it got above freezing for a sizeable portion of yesterday before refreezing overnight.  As I sit in the car waiting for the start I little little evidence that a race is actually occurring today.  Yet, there in the distance is the familiar red arch from The Running Room.  

In terms of my post-race thoughts, I have a few criticisms... but they are gentle ones because I have a lot of respect for Running Room Saskatoon.  Would it have been nicer to have not had to run on ice for so much of the race?  Yes, but what can you do?  It's not Running Room's fault.  

I knocked off a bunch of 5:30-5:45/k splits before my total lack of proper hydration slowed me down to a 6-6:30/k pace, again not Running Room's fault.  It was a real struggle because we simply didn't have very good aid stations along the course--those that did exist had only paper shot glasses of water (one station had shots of Gatorade).  Needless-to-say, it's probably a good thing that I've considered this race a sort of tune-up and not as my one shot at getting under 2:00 again.  At the end of the day, I ran a 2:07, which was four minutes faster than my pre-race goal of 2:10 (I had no intention of trying to run a sub-2 on ice, although plenty of people did it today).

And the medal?  Nice/funny medal.

The atmosphere? Hard core runners only.  There were not more than 2 or 3 spectators along the course, which didn't bother me either way, but it definitely wasn't the sort of festive atmosphere you see at races like the Saskatchewan or Manitoba Marathons.  In Burlington, Ontario race day is a really big deal!