Half-Marathon tri-fecta: Toronto, Niagara Falls and Hamilton

8am start

12 degrees celcius, sunshine/overcast

This was the only one of the three half-marathons that I have run previously. It is also one of my favourite races. I always enjoyed the Yonge Street portion of the point-to-point route, with its net downhill grade and a close-up view of the shops, restaurants and office buildings that make it a Toronto landmark.

This year’s edition of the event was a carbon copy of years past — a great race with ample room on the course despite the 8,000 or so participants. Once again, the only complaint for runners would be the seemingly inconsistent locations of the aid stations. There were stretches of almost 5km in between some water stations, while others were positioned within 1 km of each other. As usual, drivers and pedestrians had more than a few complaints of their own, with the loud honking and hollering most prominent in the downtown core along Wellington Street where the full and half marathon courses merged. No doubt the plan to permanently move this race to the spring — and thus end many years of taking place only three weeks after the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon — will help to alleviate commuter frustration. However, it will now be more of an early season tune-up than an end-of-season PB attempt.

Mild and partly cloudly weather set the stage for a lot of PBs that morning. And yes, the route is quite fast, with only Hoggs Hollow at km #4 representing a significant incline. My mistake was thinking I could treat this race as a slow training run with a goal time of 2:20 or longer. The quick course occasionally lured me into speeding up to a tempo pace for about a third of the half marathon, resulting in a chip time of 2:17. Still, I had enough energy to smile while jogging past the marathon photo cameras (that is a rare sight in my race photo collection). And given that it was the first time in two years since I ran the actual distance (race or practice), I was very happy with the result.

Niagara Falls International Half Marathon

Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010.

10am start

10 degrees celcius, cloudy

Simply put, this is my “Race of the Year” candidate for 2010. The full marathon is known for starting across the border in Buffalo and ending on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The half marathoners (more than 2,000 of them in total) were transported to Fort Erie, Ont. to run the second half of the full marathon course. That is 21km point-to-point along the peaceful and scenic waterfront of the Niagara Parkway. The water stations were consistent and abundant, generously placed at approximately every mile. If there was any worry about the route being devoid of supporters, that worry was dashed with each water station managed by loud and enthusiastic students dressed in their school colours. There was also a sizable crowd of spectators — mostly family and friends of the runners — near the finish line.

There was really only two points about the race that were of concern. For one, the stretch around the 18 or 19 km mark was a bit rough around the edges, as we had to sidestep some potholes and/or crevices at a time when most runners were beginning to feel fatigued. The other was the finishing chute (or lack thereof) after crossing the finish line. The family meeting area, refreshment tables and volunteers distributing the medals were situated too close to the finish line itself, resulting in quite a crowd. A longer chute would have rectified this.

Apart from that, the Niagara Falls International Half Marathon is a top notch event in every other area. The course itself also lived up to the promise of being fast and flat, with a net decline in the final 3kms. A forecasted rainfall held off for all of the half and most of the full marathon, creating good conditions for PB times.

Based on this, I decided to try for my own PB time, an ill-advised move given that I had ran a brisk 21km in Toronto just seven days earlier. Sure enough, after racing along at a PB pace in the first 10km (a split time that was quicker than any 10km race I ran in the past two years) fatigue forced me to slow to a jog for the second half. Still, I was pleased with my 2:08 finishing time and had two weeks to rest up for the third and final half in Hamilton.

Road 2 Hope Popeye’s Half Marathon (Hamilton)

Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010.

8:30am start

3 degrees celcius, sunny

Unlike the other two events I ran previously, the Road 2 Hope event offered race day kit pick-up — an option that was greatly appreciated. There was a catch, however: only a limited selection of t-shirt sizes (medium and small) remained on race morning, so I had to settle for one size smaller than I normally like. The tech t-shirts were unique as they came in a choice of three different colours.

The weather was cool and chilly as the shuttle buses transported us to the start line at Saltfleet High School. The marathon began at 8:15am before we started the half marathon at 8:30am, with both races finishing in Confederation Park. There was a heavy presence of Team Running Free shirts at the start line, possibly the most team members I have seen at a single event.

If Toronto was the big city route and Niagara Falls was the quiet scenic course, the Road 2 Hope was everything else. The point-to-point course began in a suburban residential sub-division, then took us onto rural roads, then a freeway ramp, and then the freeway itself (the Red Hill Valley Parkway). This was followed by a few km’s through a road construction zone, and then a stretch of Beach Blvd. that any Around the Bay 30km participant would recognize. The last portion of the route — run entirely on the wide open asphalt pathway of Confederation Park — was easily the most enjoyable part to run.

The course lived up to its billing as being fast. The first 10km was almost all downhill and I was alarmed at how fast my early splits were. The rest of the course was mostly flat, and a PB was possible until I hit a seemingly extra-long final 1.1km to finish the race. I was not alone in my assertion, as a fellow runner checked his GPS device and claimed that we ran an extra 300 metres. This might have something to do with the fact that the course was adjusted a few weeks prior due to road construction. Nonetheless, I was thrilled with my sub-2:06 time, especially since lingering fatigue caused me to hit the wall in the late stages.

The Road 2 Hope event did well overall, and was reasonably comparable to the Toronto and Niagara events despite being a smaller budget race. And as for the finishing medal, I tied it together with the ones from Niagara Falls and Toronto. Now I have a reminder that 1) I ran three half marathon races in four weeks, and 2) I will never attempt to do that again.