Ambassador Sander: How to run the Comox Valley RV Half Marathon

We’ve had five races to warm up, and now the big guns are coming out: the Comox Valley RV Half Marathon, organized by the Comox Valley Road Runners. It’s only one of two opportunities to run a distance over 10 km in the series and be ranked in the overall Series results.

It’s not only a good race to secure your spot in the overall rankings: it is also a good course to perform well. The race offers an out-and-back course, and while it has a fair bit of uphill, it also has its share of downhill.

Mentally, I like to divide the course up into four parts. Each part has a different profile, so it’s useful for building my race strategy. Breaking the race up into pieces is also quite nice to make it mentally more manageable to get ready for a long, hard-effort run.

The first part is approximately 5 km long. If you have a goal time in mind, figure out what splits you need if you were to run a flat race. This part of the course is relatively flat – give or take a bump or two – so in this part, you can simply hit these splits. There’s genuinely nothing remarkable about this section, so use it to find your groove and settle in.

The second part is where you will have to grit your teeth because it’ll be uphill until you’ve pretty much hit the halfway point. You have two choices: slow down or blow up. I recommend the first option: slow down a bit. Don’t forget it’s an out-and-back course so you’ll get the downhill portion later where you can make up time. Don’t slow down too much either, it’s fine to be a tad uncomfortable, but don’t overdo it.

Part three starts at the turnaround. Now it’s time to turn it up a notch. Go just a bit faster until you get over a bump at KM 12. Once you see the 12KM sign, it’s time to add a little spice to your race. The downhill stretch lasts for about 6KMs, so the course will help you just roll down. If you add a little bit of power, you’ll make up lots of time and you can definitely hit splits you wouldn’t normally expect to see in a half marathon.

Once your watch beeps for KM18, you should quickly check in with yourself. Since it is only three more km to go, there are a couple of different scenarios. Maybe you feel a little winded, in which case it’s too early to keep pushing really, really hard. It would be a shame to blow it in the last KM. While you can’t really win your PB in the final kilometre, you sure can lose it. So maybe settle back into a comfortably uncomfortable pace, and when you have about a mile to go, slowly start turning it up again if you can.             
Alternatively, you may still feel grand after all that downhill. If you have more left in the tank for the last three KM, just keep on going. You’ve hit a stellar average for 18 km already, why wouldn’t you be able to do it for just a bit longer? This is where your body will tell you what you can and cannot do. It’s up to you whether you think it’s worth listening. There’s no single right answer it might be too risky, or it might be a risk that will pay off. You’ll only know during the race.

No matter how things unravel, it will be a spectacular race. If you’ve never run a negative split, this is the course to change that.  It’s going to be a great adventure, so get ready!