Well……that sucked.
I’m tempted just to leave it at that, but that wouldn’t be fair to the race organizers and volunteers, who were all awesome, as always, but particularly awesome given that many of them had to stand around in the cold and rain just to hand water and gatoraide to us runners.
The weather looked dodgy first thing in the morning, and we drove through some serious downpours on our way to Toronto that had me anticipating a day of indoor shopping in lieu of outdoor running. I don’t like to quit and I haven’t DNF’d yet (inevitably it will happen), but this marathon was just a warm up race for me in preparation for the Sulphur Spring 100 miler. I was there for the spirit and energy of race day rather than trying to set a new PB, and it didn’t really seem worth slogging through a wet, cold, and generally unpleasant race just to get another finisher’s medal.
Luckily (sort of) the rain let up near start time and it didn’t seem too cold, so the race was a go. The Toronto Marathon is my favorite out of the marathons that I have run, and despite it being overcast, occasionally windy, and raining a bit, I really enjoyed most of the first half of the race, which is a real tribute to the course organizers. There is a lot of variety to the scenery in the first half of the course. It starts out in amongst the tall buildings and shops of downtown, and then gets into some of the more scenic older residential area and even passes by Casa Loma, which is always a highlight for me.
Unfortunately, the second half of the race, which is mostly along the water front and is usually lovely, was less pleasant. The temperature dropped, the wind picked up in gusts, and it started raining harder. Pretty soon I was losing sensation in my lower arms. It became difficult to grab the cups from the volunteers at the aid stations because my hands were frozen and numb. I worked my hands like clamps, slowly closing my grip until I could see the cup dent, which was when I knew that I had a good enough grip to hold on to it.
The last 2 or 3 kilometers of the race are mostly uphill as the runners head back into the city towards the finish line at Queen’s Park. This wasn’t as bad as it could have been since once I got away from the lake I was sheltered from the wind somewhat.
When I was rounding the corner in Queen’s Park and the finish line came into view I launched into my final kick. I wanted to be done. So I sprinted to the finish line as fast as I could. A Pace Bunny had passed me shortly before the end of the race and was just crossing the finish line as I was. The bunny turned, presumably to see how many of the racers had managed to stay with him, and instead saw me running full tilt directly towards him. The look of shock and confusion on his face as he clearly thought that I was about to barrel right into him was probably the highlight of my day. Needless to say that I did not assault the pace bunny, and finished in 4:10, which isn’t bad for me when I am not pushing my pace.
I’ll be back again next year, and hopefully the weather will be a little more cooperative in 2012!
