Whitby Marathon

60 1052 Rhondda Husband 4:09:30 MF40-49 5/12
78 1046 Rhian Harrold 4:39:20 MF30-39
91 1016 Gary Clark 5:01:16 MM40-49
92 1022 Mira Crowe 5:01:16 MFC
93 1011 Alana Callan 5:01:16 MF40-49

Whitby Half Marathon

2 709 Curtis Walsh 1:24:09 HM30-39 1/48
6 473 Nick Hurrell 1:28:29 HM20-29 1/14
7 568 Kasey Melanson 1:30:32 HF20-29 2/34
9 379 David Dame 1:31:17 HM30-39 2/48
19 690 Cynthia Thomson 1:34:48 HF20-29 3/34
24 345 John Burton 1:35:59 HM40-49
61 443 Rick Green 1:43:51 HM50-59
93 440 James Gordenier 1:49:19 HM50-59
104 556 Dee McArthur 1:50:58 HF30-39 9/85
209 620 Sarah Prentice 2:05:02 HF20-29 18/34
223 747 Carol Holme-Killingbec 2:07:20 HF40-49 32/87
276 748 Jeff Crowe 2:15:00 HM50-59 21/25
286 677 Mike Stutt 2:16:22 HM40-49


Victoria's Du
28 MICHAEL TRIPP PETERBOROUGH 119 1:21:08 M35-39 8/51 10 38 14:59 3:45 10 45 49:19 36.5 7 18 15:50 3:58 0:34 0:28
128 TOMMY COOKSON PETERBOROUGH 59 1:33:16 M30-34 28/53 20 118 17:01 4:16 27 136 54:30 33.0 24 136 19:22 4:51 1:21 1:04
242 RHYS PENALAGAN PETERBOROUGH 49 1:41:45 M25-29 25/36 30 314 20:07 5:02 12 116 53:38 33.6 32 390 25:32 6:23 1:08 1:22


Some great performances, how'd it go?

Some very impressive performances out there and thanks to Mike for photo's and course support throughout.
Congrats to all and especially Curtis (2nd overall), Nick (6th overall), Kasey (2nd woman) & Cynthia (3rd woman) for all getting PB's!

I threw up a race report in my Training Blog, to read the bitter report click the pic below :)

What great day for a race and I am glad that the race started early because it started getting hot around 10o’clock when the sun came. I came into this race with a goal of breaking 1:30, now after what happened at the bay (hitting my goal time but missing out on a silver medal by 28sec) I did not want it to come down to the last 2km and saying “well it is going to be close” so I set my goal of 1:28:30. It was tuff gauging how fast we were going, my heart rate monitor was not working and the K markers were so far off that it was almost funny at times….I ran one K in 5:50 then the very next K I must have turned Kenya because I ran it in 2:40! There was 3 guys about 500m in front of me for the majority of the race and I told myself that I was going to catch them before the race was over, so at 14km I started my pick up and I was about 100m back with ~1.5km to go when they got waved onto the full marathon course and I was turned around to finish my half. So with 200m left I made one final kick and finished in 1:28:28, which is a 5min PB for me! Congrats to all who finished the race good work!

Well... this was my second half marathon – my first was Ptbo in February. My first time was 1:48 (and something) and so I had hoped to hold that for this event. However, I expected to have problems with the temperature... and I did. Around 15km (I think) the sun came out and humbled my big plans for the race...

All in all, it was a lotta fun. I liked the course, and the spectators were very encouraging – even the guy who was teasing me for trying not to squash the ant hills. The sections by the water gave some respite from the heat. I did have a vague notion that the km markers were off – but I’m not scientific enough in my approach to have had it trouble me. The finish line was a little wonky and there was no 20 km marker. This meant that I couldn’t cue my sprint-to-the-finish music in time...

In the end, my time was 1:50 (and something), and I was ok with that. I think overall, I’ve improved since Ptbo – I felt quite strong until the heat arrived, and I think if the temperature had stayed reasonable, I might have at least held my previous time....but who knows? It was a great day. Congratulations to Curtis, Kasey, Cynthia, Nick, and Dave – way to win EVERYTHING!

Thanks for all the encouragement, and Kasey, for driving. Thanks Mike for taking such awesome pictures...can’t wait to see them

This race is hard to assess for me. I did not feel well all week and was not expecting a good race. My goal had been to break 1:35 but I was not feeling confident. I am a conservative starter in races so I tried to go out a little faster than normal so that I wouldn’t finish with tons of energy left over. My pace, however, was all over the place based on my Garmin. I tried to use the km markers but as mentioned by others, I got splits of 5:48, 2:44, 4:26, 3:27, 14:51 (some markers were missing). This made it very difficult and I think I was going a little faster than I wanted to (i.e. 4:20 instead of 4:30). I was all by myself in no man’s land from about 16km on and started losing motivation. I walked two water stations and ran km 19 to 20 at about a 5:20 pace. This was disappointing because I still had energy (I ran km 20-21 at a 4:11 pace) but couldn’t mentally pull it together. Despite having what I would consider a bad race, I achieved my goal time of 1:34:48. This was only my second half-marathon (Ptbo. was the first in 1:37:06) so I am thinking of it as a learning experience.

Thanks to all my training partners and Kasey for driving. Congratulations to all.

I was very happy with my race! At the beginning I was feeling good and fast with my new racing flats and knew that it was going to be a decent race for me. As everyone has mentioned already at about 3K I realized that the K markers were pointless and stopped trying to time my splits. I think that that actually helped me as I tend to over analyze my pace and how I am feeling when I run, so it was nice just to focus on running. At a turn around about 8K in I noticed Cynthia close behind and knew that I had to stay strong if I was to stay ahead of her.

The second half of the race felt better than the first, something new for me! I wish I knew my time at the halfway point because I think I actually had a negative split for once (be proud Dave)! The second half flew by as I was picking off people at a decent rate. At about 16K I noticed Dave ahead and that was a sweet carrot for a few K.
The end of the race was kind of crazy. With about 3K to go you had a mini out and back and run right by the finish line which was hard to do. Although it was motivating to see the lead runners like Curtis and Nick pass by. The missing 20K marker completely confused me and I had no idea how much running I had left to do. The finish line was on a curve so I completely lost my chance to kick it in and crossed slightly confused. My time was much faster than I thought it was going to be so based on that I thought I had more running to do. I actually didn’t believe my time and had to check with people wearing a Garmin to insure that it actually was 21.1Km! It was :).

Besides the K marker confusion I really enjoyed the race course. My brother distracting me on the bike and running with a great group of friends really helped to! Congratulations all, enjoy the recovery in the heat, I’ll be back at it next week!

As everyone has stated above me, the day was great, company was great, course was a fun mix of road and paths however the accuracy was a bit off. At the 5Km mark I stopped checking splits and just ran for positions and getting a solid effort out of the day. My goal going into the day was to run 1:25 and to try to learn how to race better, what I have learned from my few races that I have done is that the worse I feel at the start the better, so not to let it get to me. The last 12Km was very lonely, thanks to Mike for keeping me honest and company. Good day in general, but I will admit it was the hardest $10 bucks I have ever earned.
Congrats to Nick especially, all your hard work is defiantly paying off, you deserved it no doubt.
1:24 and injury free, so I will call it a success.