My dreams of a sub-3:00 run were dashed. I made the split at 1:29:44 but finished at 3:26:07. Somewhere after the 2hr mark I started getting spasms in my calf muscles. This came immediately after the long downhill, and was undoubtedly related to it somehow. The odd thing was that it was perfectly balanced… I'd have spasms in one leg, and a few km later, I'd have spasms in the other. Every single time that I tried to increase my pace, my muscles felt like they were trying to tear themselves apart, first I'd have twitching at the top and it would slowly dance around from one muscle fibre to another. Kind of like my muscles were having a little bout of arrhythmia… maybe I need a pacemaker for my legs!

Needless to say, my calf muscles were useless after that. I found that I could still run flat-foot, with my quads doing all of the work. Yeah. Now that the race is done, my quads feel like they ran 50km and my calf muscles, well, they feel peachy keen, ready to conquer the world. The bastards. They let me down!

So, what to do? I need strength training for my quads and calves, plus maybe more trail running to build stability. They say that cramps are related to sodium deficiency, but I had half a bag of potato chips last night in addition to a good dinner, and I drank Gatorade at every station in the race. Another thing I need to do is book a marathon for the fall… Kelowna is Oct 9th, the Mad Moose in Prince George is on Sept 25 (it's a trail run), Regina is Sept 11, and Edmonton is Aug 21.

Finally, a plea to the Calgary Marathon organizers: please rent a few more potties next year! The lineups were crazy and I couldn't empty my bladder before the race, I even had to toss half a bottle of water because I knew it would put me over my limit.