Fitness Swellness: Shoppers Love You Run for Women 2017 race recap

June 13, 2017

A few months ago, Shoppers Drug Mart asked if I’d like to run the Shoppers Love You Run for Women 2017

, which took place on June 10th, and given that it’s in support of a cause I think is important — women’s mental health programs — I agreed right away. I had missed running the race last year as I was out of town, but I did run it the year prior and had a lot of fun.

I wasn’t planning on racing it, but to run it for fun. I’d taken a long break after running the Barbados Half-Marathon in December, and was only running about once or twice a week for several months, so my pace has gotten much, much slower. Although I have been training more consistently for the past month or so, it’ll take awhile til I get close to the running shape I have been in before.

So my approach to this Run for Women 10k was very relaxed. I didn’t stress leading up to it. I wasn’t even quite sure where the race start was when I looked it up at 9 p.m. the night before. I also didn’t get my nails done for it. I KNOW. I never race without my nails done!

My friend and fellow iRun colleague Anna Lee agreed to do the race as well and we met up before the race started. Saturday turned out to be a sunny, hot day, I believe it was about 18 degrees when I stepped out to head to the race. We started the race together and my plan was to run it as a tempo, that is for it to feel comfortably hard. Anna Lee was faster and I knew I had to dial back my pace or I’d be miserable and hurting the entire race (and I had zero desire to feel that way) so she went ahead and I could see her about half a block ahead of me most of the race.

There is little support along the route. Much thanks to the cheerful volunteers smiling and encouraging runners, and thank you to the man standing at Queen’s Park with a neon bristle board sign that read “You are a life-changer.” Because it’s always nice to have a reminder that this is about furthering such an important cause.

As for the route, it was flat and interesting enough as it was through midtown Toronto so stores and buildings for scenery. Because I’d only glanced at the map, I didn’t realize until during the race that the 10k is the 5k route done twice. I spent much of my time behind one runner, who each time I’d catch up to her, she would speed up. In fact, after the race, she found me and thanked me for helping to pace her, haha! That’s another favourite aspect of this race, it’s a pretty friendly, feel-good kind of race. Oh, and the medal is a cute bracelet that reads Love You.

Because I had zero plans to aim for a PB, I didn’t work my way to the front of the corral for the race start. But I wish I had, because when I looked up the results, the results are based on gun time, not chip time! Doh! Oh well. In any case, I finished in 54:01 gun time (which is about 30 seconds longer than the time I recorded on my Nikeplus, which is 52nd out of 291 runners, and 29th out of 229 women. Which I’m fine with, I actually expected to be slower, and there was the hot temperatures that day, too. How I’ve run the same distance about 7 minutes faster boggles my mind…but it’s helping to inspire me as I have to kickstart my Chicago Marathon training soon and it’s nice to remember that it is possible for me to run a much faster pace. I just have to put in the training.

I’d be remiss if I did not mention the very generous swag bag. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swag bag like this before. I stuffed it into my backpack for the 4k walk home from the race, and it legit started to hurt by back, it was that heavy! If swag is a motivator, ladies, you need to get in on this race next year. We’re talking full-size hair products and chocolate and more. This photo doesn’t even feature every item from the bag.

Congrats to everyone who ran the Toronto edition (and all of the other cities, too!) of the Run for Women, and good luck to you in St. John’s running it on June 25th!

Filed under: Fitness Swellness

Tags: 10k, fitness, race recap, race report, run, run for women, running, shoppers love you