Stupid Thing #10 - Toronto Marathon 5K

When you tell people you're doing the "Toronto Marathon 5K", they often only hear the first two words. Which is kind of funny.

Our "stupid thing" for October was supposed to be something far cooler than a regular old 5K - it was a night-time Halloween trail run in a conservation area. But that event was cancelled, so settled for running up and down Toronto streets again, which is spooky in a different way. The 5K is an adjunct to the bigger events, the marathon and half-marathon, and is probably largely designed as a moneymaker for the event. But, hey, we had fun. One of the perks of running in a big race is that you get a lot more free stuff. :-) Coupons... product samples... we got free cereal, energy bars, hair elastics, menstrual cramp heating pads, and more magnets than you can fit on a beer fridge. Plus a t-shirt that has a map of the marathon route on the back, so we can pretend that we ran the whole 42 kilometers.

One serious drawback of this race was that it started at 8 a.m. I learned from our last race that not eating before I run is not really a good idea. But you also don't want to be too full, so we needed to eat a significant amount of time before the race. Plus, we had to ride our bikes to the race because the subway doesn't run until 9 on Sundays. All this leads to the unfortunate requirement that we get up at a ridiculous hour on a Sunday morning. I will let you guess whose breakfast is whose.

There were about 2600 people doing the 5K, a lot of them walking. This is the biggest race we've done thus far. It's fun to be part of such a big crowd. Well, except for the walkers who refuse to heed the organizers' pleas for them to move to the back at the start line so the people who are actually running for a good time don't have to weave around them. Walkers also have a habit of traveling in packs and walking 4 or 5 abreast. Shif and I both probably lost a minute off our times just trying to get around people at the beginning of the race.The start

The race is pretty straightforward - run from Queens Park (the site of the Ontario legislature building) straight down University Avenue to Wellington, turn around, and come back. The tricky part of this is that the first half is downhill and the second half is a long consistent climb. We both tried to ride the downhill as much as we could and build up some time before we started the slog back to Queens Park. I missed the marker that indicated the 1K point, so I had no idea what my pace was until the 2K marker, when 40% of the race was over. I felt slow and sloppy, but it turned out my pace was pretty fast. And that included 15 or 20 seconds to stop and retie my shoes.

The secret to success for me when I'm running is to not think about running - to try not to think about how heavy I'm breathing, and how my form feels like crap, and how my shoulder is cramping, and how I can't possibly run anymore. If I can just distract myself a bit I can get into a rhythm. Right before the turnaround I successfully ignored myself for at least a minute because I was trying to spot Shif on the other side of the road after she made the turn. One of the good, or bad, things about out-and-back courses is that you can see how far ahead of you others are. It's especially interesting (inspiring? demoralizing?) to see the leaders (people who can run a 5K in 15 minutes) in the homestretch when you feel like you've barely started.

There was a water stop between the 2K and 3K marks, shortly after the uphill started and my heart rate had accelerated. I decided to walk through the water stop, drink the whole cup without spilling most of it on my shoes, and get my energy back. Then I was back at it and felt pretty strong. The 4K marker, we later learned, was in the wrong place. I noticed that my time for that kilometer seemed exceptionally fast, but I thought maybe I had kicked it in a little more than I thought. Based on that time, I knew I would easily make my goal 33:45, and at the same time I was getting a weird painful stitch in my shoulder (this happened in the Island Run too), so I backed off just a little bit.

As it turned out, that bad bit of information meant I didn't actually make my goal, but I still finished at 34:03. That's 39 seconds faster than at the Island Run three weeks ago - and that course was totally flat, so I was pretty happy! Shif was gunning to get under 30 minutes and didn't quite make it (30:36). 30 minutes was her goal for the end of the year, so she still has two months to break it, and I know she will. We have both come soooo far since that pokey Resolution Run in January.

After the race, we wanted to hang around and watch the half and full marathoners come in to the finish. We watched the winners of the half cross the finish line, but it was freezing (1° and we were wearing just our running clothes), so we took a warm-up break at Second Cup.


We made it back to see the half-marathoners who were finishing in more than 2 and a half hours. Those people are more inspiring than the winners. Most of them are probably first-timers and you can see how much they've suffered to get there. That's a lot of running! We got a nice spot in the sun at the last turn and cheered them on.

Shif has a big smile at the finish!

So, 10 stupid things in the books and two more to go! We already have several family members who are going to trot and/or walk the Turkey Trot with us in November. And a couple other friends have already signed on to don Santa suits with us in December! This is your last chance to be stupid with us - come along!