A 5k, 2 grown women dressed as owls, and much mayhem

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!