This weekend marked my third Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront
Marathon 5k.
I’ve had a great few years
pushing my non-runner’s body to run!
Always had fun, always remarkably sore the next day, always garnered
lots of attention for NCC in my costume, and raised nearly $2,000 plus an
additional $500 for the costume prize in 2010!
Feel good stats aside, last Sunday, October 14 was a BIT of a gong
show.
So of course, the tale belongs on
my blog.
The weather was calling for rain all week. Still jaded from a summer of dry lawn,
parched garden, municipal water restrictions and being let down time and again
when rain was listed in the forecast, I tend not to believe the weather network
more than a few hours in advance and was convinced the weather was going to clear
up for Sunday’s run. Ha. I gave into the inevitable on Saturday night,
realizing it was going to be a soggy morning.
Our carefully constructed owl costumes (shout out to Viv, Pam,
supervisor Dawn, alcohol, and Degrassi Junior High on Netflix in the background)
were not built to be waterproof, so it was going to be interesting to see how
they held up (even in dry years I always lose at least one leaf or petal or
something!). Late Saturday night I was
checking out the logistics of the race, writing down directions for how to get
around the Lakeshore closure and trying to get a sense of where the heck to
park. With the race starting at 8 a.m. I texted Viv “we better leave at 6:10
just to be safe!”. Ha.
I awoke to torrential rain, pervasive darkness and an alarm
going off at some ungodly hour in the 5:30 a.m. neighbourhood. Those who know me know that waking anytime
before 9 a.m. on a weekend is unacceptable.
I stayed in a surprisingly good mood, giving Jeff a friendly kiss
goodbye.. and ruining that 5 minutes later by crashing back into the bedroom
shaking him awake and demanding to know where he’d hid my running shoes
(sidebar: I had left them beside my treadmill a few days earlier and they were
out of my view when I walked down into the basement, but that’s beside the
point, right?). Grabbing Ms. Vivianne,
we hauled it out of town and hit the first Lakeshore exit off the Gardiner by
7:00 a.m. – ya us!! I mused “perhaps it would
be better to take the Gardiner to Park Lawn and find another way vs. this way
which will inevitably close in a few hundred meters and force all cars traveling
east on Lakeshore to go north on Windermere.. hmm.. nah.. it’s early.. I’m sure
there will be no cars.” WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME. We sat on a 1 km stretch of highway
exit/Lakeshore for approximately 37 minutes while time ticked closer and closer
to 8:00 a.m. I decided we better make
the best use of sitting in stop and go traffic and we began pinning our owl
wings to our arms. Interesting trying to
pin a safety pin on the outside of your left arm (did you just try it? Ya. Then add driving at the same time. Gong!).
Finally turning, traffic was ok. Queensway was ok. Then King fell apart. At this point it’s 7:48 a.m. and the race
starts at 8 (did I mention that?).
FINALLY FINALLY I crawl my way to Dufferin and head south. Anyone been on Dufferin lately? It’s RIPPED TO SHREDS and only one lane of
traffic is allowed through – southbound traffic. And it’s going sloooooow. But we’re crawling along, debating about
where we shall park when we finally get down there and suddenly I am having to
shield my eyes from the glare of headlights.
What the eff? One way traffic. Why are there headlights facing me? Ah of course.
It’s someone going north on Dufferin trying to drive directly into
oncoming traffic. Just as I’m about to
get out of the car and smash his windshield, a police lady appears out of the
fog and starts instructing the car that it must go left or turn around, there
is no going straight. Driver continues
to gesture he’d like to go straight.
Police lady: “no going straight! Left or turn around!”. With much hand
gesturing, this conversation went on for at least 15 seconds. Then Viv and I got involved, screaming and
gesturing wildly through the windshield to get the eff out of our
way!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7:55… Said car moves, police lady disappears back
into the fog from whence she came and I get to actually put my foot on the gas
for the first time in awhile. I FLEW
through the Ex grounds – FLEW! It was as
if I was already an owl and a parking lot was my small rodent prey. I remember paying the parking machine at 7:59
a.m. and thinking “I’m glad I’m not racing for my best personal time today..”. Then Viv and I began our flight through the
parking lots of the Ex to Ontario
Place, where the start line has been annoyingly
moved to. When you splash in the first
cold puddle in your meshy running shoes it totally sucks. By the fourth one, you’re almost immune. We spotted the runner’s corral. We’d already run half a kilometre and this
race hadn’t started! But we were almost
there! Ooh look a cameraman! Maybe he’ll see our costumes and we’ll be on
the news--- WHAT THE FLIP IS THAT FENCE DOING THERE?! To which we both simultaneously yelled
“F**K!!!!!” and quickly changed course; owl-like in our dogged pursuit and
quick decisions in flight. I don’t think
we made the news.
In the corral, ready to go!
What? This corral isn’t being
released until 8:12 a.m.!? But I was
already running! I want to keep running. Oh well. So we decided to make the most of
our free moment and take some pics of our costumes. So, within 4 minutes of being out in the
rain, the bristol board supporting our owly ear tufts had essentially melted
back down onto our heads and we were nothing but crazy girls with giant eyes
and very wet wings (some guy asked me if I was oil-proof.. tbd!).
Eventually we got to start running, which felt great after
all the traffic, mayhem, stress and adrenaline. After 1 km a nice lady handed
me half my wing that had torn off. After
1.5 km the glue holding my bristol board owl eyes onto swimming goggles smeared
away and my eyes flew behind me in a flurry.
Now we were just two girls in swimming goggles with some wings
half-clinging to our sleeves with safety pins.
But we owned it. One fellow
complimented Viv on thinking ahead to wearing swimming goggles to combat the
rain; every time a volunteer on the sidelines cheered, Viv and I responded with
“whoooo… whooooo!” (now that we were barely owls, this was perhaps confusing,
but it made us laugh every time so it was worth it).
The race was great – couldn’t ask for a better running
partner than Vivvy. We even stopped at 3
km to take redonk pics of ourselves and our costume mayhem.
Around this point we started describing ourselves as owl roadkill.
When we finally turned up
Bay St. (1
km to go!) I started to feel the effects of not having run for months but kept
powering through.
My running partner
poured it on at the end so I had to do what I could to keep up with her!
You can see from the marathon pics me laughing
while trying to make sure our feet crossed the finish line at the same time
(check out the later ones in the series where the clock reads 51 minutes
http://www2.brightroom.com/97722/25087)
and a sweet high five.. followed by my sheer exhaustion, and highlighted by the
guy walking in front of Viv in all those pics (yikes!).
Lovely feeling being done. We finished in 38
mins
(we were “released” a bit late as
you remember) – ya us!!
Ok. Now.. the shuttle
buses back to the Ex aren’t running until 10:30 a.m.? It’s 9:04 a.m. WTF.
We had brunch plans with Dawn at 10:00 a.m. back near the Ex. UMMM.
So we decided to just hoof it down to Union and take the GO back to my
car, then drive up to Liberty
Village. After some confusion about actually getting
to Union (such Guelph
girls eh!) we got there, de-owled (after wandering all over downtown in raggedy
wings and eventually having a nice couple politely ask us what we “once were”)
and headed in to buy a couple tix. I had
the $20 I’d managed to cram into the tiny pocket at the back of my pants, so I
went to one of those automated machines as there were no GO attendants
working. The machine informed me it
wouldn’t be able to give me correct change for our $9 fare. Would I like to pay a bit the overcharge and
get some change, or cancel? Well what
choice did I have? I said I’d pay the
overcharge. The screen flashes: “you are
paying $2.80 more” and suddenly there are dimes pouring out of the machine like
I’d just won big at the casino.
WTF! Dimes after dimes and I just
started helplessly laughing. Luckily I
had a bag with some snacks they’d given me after the race so I was able to
scoop my ~$8 in dimes, quarters and a couple of loonies into the bag. I laughed for probably another two minutes at
the sheer quantity of dimes and absurdity of it all.
We hopped on the GO and were waiting for it to head west and
get us back to the warmth and dryness of Jetta.
Viv, looking out the window, says “hey…Dawn” in a quiet voice – I think
“stop being weird Viv” and look out the window only to find Dawn, our breakfast
date, standing on the platform staring open mouthed at us. She hopped on the train and I explained we
were going to be late for breakfast ;) Turns out she was trying to figure out
the easiest way to brunch from her mom’s, where she’d been dog-sitting, and was
wandering the platform wondering if she should indeed take the GO train. Happily
all together; a short train ride, a spider falling from the ceiling (“ON ME?!”)
and a confused stroll through the Ex grounds later, there was my baby Jetta
waiting for us – warm and dry!
That day there was simply nothing better than a) changing
into a dry shirt (yup I took off my top AND sports bra in the parking lot at
the Ex, keepin’ it classy b) heated seats c) good company and a delicious
brunch at School in Liberty Village (BROWN SUGAR BUTTER YUMMMM!) d) a
traffic-free drive home to Guelph e) a hot bath f) a cozy nap in my sweatshirt
and flannel pj bottoms and g) the reward of completing a small athletic
challenge and an even bigger logistical challenge with one of my favourite
people. My muscles even stopped hurting… by Thursday… ;)
I’ll take this chance to announce my retirement from
running, after years of herniated discs in my back, plantar fasciitis in my
feet, bursitis in my hip and an ankle injury I never had diagnosed last summer because
my physiotherapist was on maternity leave (lol). My slightly off-kilter body and child-bearin’
hips just don’t seem to be built for this sport, so I will be limiting my
(limited) athletic prowess to the elliptical, hikes in the forest, strength
training, yoga and whatever else looks fun and will be kind to my old lady 29
year old body!!
Thanks to all who supported our run, and all those who read
this blog entry which was over three pages long in Word before pics. Sometimes a day that crazy just deserves
three pages!
Whoooooo… whoooooo!
