Race Date: Sat. May 23, 2009.
Time: 6:30pm
Weather: 22 degrees celcius, sunny
Apologies for this review being so late — perhaps it took that long to recover from the post-race eating binge at the ByWard Market.
For those who are not familiar with the Ottawa area, the ByWard Market is a few blocks filled with restaurants, food stands and eateries ranging from fine dining to ice-cream stands. And it is rather strategically placed in close range of Ottawa’s biggest downtown area attractions — the Parliament Buildings, the Chateau Laurier hotel, the Rideau Centre mall and the finish line for the National Capital Marathon (NCM) weekend.
Indulging in comfort food was the natural thing for me to do after posting a “personal worst” time at the event’s MDS Nordion 10km that Saturday evening. I shrugged off the fact that a proper warm-up was virtually impossible. An estimated 8,000 competitors tried to sort themselves among a series of seemingly unpoliced corrals within the starting line on Laurier Ave. Doing so was no easy feat, as what little room was left on the sidewalks was swallowed up by a large crowd of spectators and volunteers. Nonetheless, the start was incident free and smooth, and I was swept along in a large pack that was clocking 5 min per km.
For those familiar with the marathon route, the 10km race borrowed the marathon’s Colonel By Drive portion between the downtown core and Carleton University. It wasn’t until we were near Carleton (roughly the 5km mark) before we were greeted with our first water station. This posed an issue since the first 5km was southbound into direct sunshine on a warm, wind-free evening. I was one of several individuals around me who had to stop to refill our flasks of water, as I had used up my supply. Two more water stations followed at roughly the 7km and 8.5km mark.
By that time, I was completely exhausted and walking every few minutes, unable to think of an explanation for the fatigue. I then saw a younger, seemingly fit female runner passed out on the ground; her head in the hands of a volunteer who called out for medical help. Perhaps the running gods were sending a message, so I slowed to a pedestrian jog for the last few km’s. Good thing I did, as the finish line area was crowded and fenced off as expected, and the slow walk back to the family meeting area took another 10 – 15 minutes.
By no means am I attempting to criticize the organization of the event. Organizers did well considering the size of the race, as the crowded start and finish areas are a side effect of its popularity. However, circumstances dictated that runners could have benefited from a water station prior to the 5km mark, and hopefully organizers will look into making this a reality for future years. As well, they might also want to take a look at how the Sporting Life 10km starting line corrals were arranged and policed this year — it might help to improve the starting line confusion.
Overall, the event was good enough to be worthy of the popularity associated with the Ottawa Marathon weekend. However, as one who ran the same race back in 2003 and rated that edition among the best races I ever ran, this year’s edition was simply not close in comparison. Perhaps it is good that NCM races are now capped, because the race was much more enjoyable from a mid-pack runner’s perspective when there was a few thousand less participants in the mix. Just a thought from a runner who eased the sting of a bad finishing time with a large plate of poutine at Zak’s Diner.
