Maritime Race Weekend is a back to back running event. We ran one race at dusk and another one at dawn the next morning. We did back to back 5ks but you can choose from 5k, 10k, a half marathon, or a full marathon.
Maritime Race Weekend is a super popular event that takes place in September. It was sold out well before the race dates. My husband and I registered back in February and Becky registered in May. We wanted to make sure we were all signed up and didn’t miss out! We also spent the night at a hotel in Halifax so we had a fun weekend trip too!
The races themselves were bitter sweet for me. When we had first signed up I was training for a 10k and I had plans to run a half-marathon by October. My shins on the other hand… They are having none of that. I haven’t been running much lately because I seem to always get shin splints and I am still trying to tweak my running form, recovery, and whatever else I can think of to prevent them.
The first race was at 7pm. I really had no goal going into the race. I knew I would not run an amazing race – I knew I would definitely not beat my best run time either. I felt no pressure, which felt pretty good. And honestly? The race felt amazing. It was one of those races that really motivated me and reminded me why I love running. I finished about 2mins slower than my best time.
The second race was at 8am the next morning. Again, I knew I wasn’t going to have an amazing race. I could already feel the pain working it’s way into my shins, plus I had bruising on my toes because my shoes were a bit too small. I finished this race a full four minutes slower than the last race. I walked a lot of the way in a lot of pain.
Medals from Maritime Race weekend. You got an extra medal for doing both races.
I’m choosing to not get defeated though. Instead of focusing on my slow race times, my shin splints, my bruised toes, etc. I’m focusing on the fact that I have never ran 10k in one weekend before, I have never ran two 5k’s back to back, I was able to run a full 3k before stopping for both races! I wanted to be more prepared for the races but that’s okay. I will focus on doing better next year.
So what’s next? A week after the races I am still feeling a lot of shin pain. I am taking it easy and making sure I am fully healed before attempting to run. In the meantime I am still doing Taekwondo 3 days a week, strength training 2-3 days a week, and using the stationary bike almost daily.
