The Running Diva

Thursday, June 19, 2008

I’m at the Vancouver airport right now typing this entry on my itouch, waiting for my flight to Ottawa. I caught an 8am flight here and have a three hour wait…ugh! It was a long and exciting day yesterday. The audition went well, I think. I decided to take a seaplane to Vancouver instead of taking the ferry…wise thing to do, as it was a already a packed day! The audition was only a minute long. There were about 10 people in a small dark room with a a very bright light that shone in my eyes, a video cameraman and a bunch of producers and a creative team. They had me talk a bit about myself to the camera and then asked me to run on the spot as if I was on a training run. I started “running” and although it felt a bit silly at first, I got into it and after 45 seconds I was done! I went and changed and just as I was leaving they calledme on my cell to ask me if I had a sponsorship because the ad is for s
Sportcheck and I guess they want to be sure I’d be able to wear whatever sports clothing they pit me in without a conflict of interest. I got back into town just after 3pm, got changed in my race gear and headed to the track. My warmup felt fine and I felt pretty relaxed at the start. The race was taken out very quickly by a few girls but I managed to stay calm an went through the first lap in 79… a bit quick but I eased into a controlled rythmn right away. OVal wanted a relaxed first 3km but it was a bit too relaxed. I should have been running 81s but apparently I was running 83-84s. I was avoiding looking at lap times as much as possible. The race was kind of uneventful for me which is to say I ran a very boring race! The three women who broke away right from the start were so far ahead of our second pack that I couldn’t get pulled and I led the entire way of our group which basically felt like a monotonous slog with no help from the two who were holding ok to me. At one point the girl who was on my shoulder for 2km finally came up to take the lead but she slowed up as soon as she got in front, I clipped her foot and nearly tripped then realized we were going be runninh 85s if she led so I moved up front again and took the lead once more. With three laps to go, the leader lapped us and as she went by, I thought she was one of the girls in our pack so I started to try and hang on to her but soon realized she was on her final lap and was going for it. I tried to get the legs firing in that last couple of mms but I think it was a tough day with no one there pushing me. I should have been able to pick it up on my own but I let myself sink into a comfortable rythmn too long. I was far from thrilled with my time. I know I can run faster but considering this was my first 5000m, my first track race in over a year and the busy day I had, I did ok. I also didn’t feel exretremely confident going in just because I had no idea where I was fitness-wise. Ocal was pleased with the effort and I think this gave him a better idea about what we need to work on mentally.
Shauna, Larie and I sang the national anthem afterwards which was fun!