Sat 4/7 - AM 80 minutes incl. 8k road race

8k in 26:49 on the undulating terrain of High Park in T.O. A solid effort, although undeniably sabotaged to some degree by overarching exhaustion. Not just last night, although it was the usual hostel-related nonsense with French-Canadian assholes rummaging through their things well after midnight, but from the past few days as I've been waking up feeling quite not at all well-rested. As per usual, not sleeping enough or well enough. With yesterday's long day of travel on top of it all I found myself in that fantastic manic state of overtiredness wherein I couldn't even take a decent nap in the afternoon. Given all that plus the rolling course and steady breeze from the north, decided to play it conservative at the start. Despite this, the first 2k supposedly went in under 6:08 according to the clock on the side of the course. That stretch included a long downhill, one of two on the course. Spent the next 2k gaining that elevation back, reached in 13:08. Spent kms 1-4 moving up smartly through the field and feeling pretty good about myself, but the second half of the race was a gradual fade at best. Tried hanging on to a pair of guys but incapable of doing so, settled into no-man's land. The second major descent, shorter but steeper, did me no favors at all. Things were capped off by going back up the 300m or so hill that I went down in the second km. This was pretty much as advertised, i.e. it sucked, with a headwind to boot. Overall, definitely felt the underlying fatigue in the second half of the race, no energy to draw from. Despite or perhaps because of this, the result is somewhat encouraging as the training seems to be taking hold. As ever, sleeping better will determine how well I can access the fitness, hopefully less volume in May and June will help with that. I know I wouldn't have been able to run this time on this course at this time of year either of the past three years, so there's that. My time would have won masters prize money any of the last five years of this event but of course, this year I finished 8 seconds out of the money. Unable to reel in a guy who I figured was probably 40+, so I certainly had the motivation.