2015 Nike women's toronto 15k

June is a really crazy month for me. A lot of things happened, but mostly good things:) I finally passed my prelim, officially one step away from getting my PhD. Will and I had a road-trip to Canada. On June 14, We ran Nike women's Toronto 15K, which is our first road-running. Right after getting back from Canada, Will and I moved into our new apartment.

I trained with William to run the Toronto Nike women's 15km. It's such a precious experience to have a goal together and work it out. William is a great couch who always cheer me up when I was about to give up. During the training, we ran 6 mile around central park, which is one of my dream since I never knew I can run that far.  We also explored some of the local trails. I stopped my training at the end of May because of the one-week before notification for my prelim. At that time, the longest distance I can run was 8 miles. So before the race, my plan is at least run for 8 miles(12.8km) and walk for the rest.

We arrived Toronto a day before the race and picked up the package. William thought the ferry docks is the same as packet pick-up place. So we drove to the dock and wasted a little time to find the expotique before we realized we were in the wrong place. It took about ten mins walk from ferry dock to pick-up place. Since we had paid the parking for 1.5hrs, we decided to walk. The packet pickup was in a huge tent and there was no wait when we arrived. It looks like there were a lot of cool things inside the expotique but we need to go back to our car. We only had a chance to take a picture with the race map. 

Things inside my race packet

On the race day: Originally, the weather forecast said it'll be cloudy for the whole morning and rain after 1pm. However, it started raining around 9 am. Will and I wrapped our body with heat sheet but still felt really cold. We stayed in the  shield and had a small fight about when we should going to our corral. At the end William decided to stay under the tree until last minute, and I went to wait in my corral after the first wave started. I covered myself with heat sheet and only had my eyes shown. It stopped raining when wave 5 started and stayed cloudy for the rest of the race.

At the first 3km, I was basically trying to pass around people and to avoid the puddles. Then, I  ran on the Toronto city airport runway and passed the most scenic spot of this race. From there, you can see the spectacular Toronto skyline.  A lot of runners stopped and took pictures but I decided to continue. At around 6km, I saw wave 6 pacers whose finish time 1:41 is my goal, so I followed the race group for another 3km. After that, I felt I had chance to finish even faster so I left. Instead of concentrating on synchronizing my pace and following the group, I had more time to enjoy the cheerful spectators and all the interesting signs (Will and I both saw a guy hold a sign said "The sexist parade in the world", and he flashed him :p) The last 3km on the wooden boardwalk with lake view is really enjoyable. I sprint at the last 200m. I got my recovery snacks bag (no banana inside QQ) and waited for William. It started raining again at this point. After shaking and having goosebumps all over my arms for 20 minutes, I decided to get my finish necklace designed by Tiffany & co. After making an international phone call, I finally met Will in front of gear storage. He actually finished the race 10 minutes before me.

It's a really inspiring to see all the women with different fitness level, ages, but with the same goal, finishing the race. I am so happy to be one of the 10000 women participated this race. I'll keep running and plan to run a half marathon sometimes this year. Thanks William for being a good running partner. We definitely will run more race together.