Tochi's Hut

After my eventful Ottawa Marathon in May of this year, I did not feel like I ran a full marathon.  So, a week later, on May 30th, I signed up for the October Toronto Marathon to give myself a chance at redemption.  May 30th feels like eons ago, but the Toronto Marathon date creped upon me a lot faster than expected.

As in any intense sport, training is of utmost importance and often begins months before the actual competition.  I gave myself the entire June off as a break after the Ottawa Marathon; studies have shown that it takes a day for each mile ran in order for your body to recover.  I have also been told you only need 3 months of intense training to prepare for a marathon!

For many reasons, none better than I was lazy and had found more interesting things to do than running, I got off to a slow start with my training.  Then came the Iceland and Enchantments trips to interrupt my training schedule.  By September, I only ran once or twice a week, the typical run was about 5km, with single long run of about 20km.  Perhaps I was eating out a lot more, but my weight was 3-4 lbs heavier than in May.

I participated in the September Terry Fox run – a good opportunity to test my race pace for 10km.  Finished the run in about 53 minutes.  I had given my all into the run, and my pace was quite a bit slower than my all time best of 47 minutes.  My muscles were sore after the run too.  Not Good!!! 

I was pretty motivated from that point to seriously train, as I realized I was pretty screwed in terms of preparation already.  However, to make matters worse, two weeks before the race, I experienced some upper left chest pains.  I had no idea if the pain was emanating from my chest muscles or my heart.  At the same time, a rash had developed behind my right knee and had become infected. 

This health scare totally rattled my psyche.  If I could not even walk without pain, how was I going to run a marathon?  Despite the disappointment, the choice was rather simple.  Health comes before running.  Ended up seeing a doctor and getting a battery of tests for my heart and chest.  Most likely just a temporal muscle spasm, according to my doctor.  I also got a prescription of Bmethasone which did wonders to my rash (cured in 48 hours).

To make matters even more interesting, the weather had taken a sharp turn to the chilly side the week before the marathon.  10-15C (50-60F) is the ideal temperature range, but the forecast put race day to be 2-8C (35-45F)!  Everyone jokingly said that I would not collapse from heat exhaustion in this weather!  However, I did not want to freeze to death or carry extra clothing weight for 42km. 

I was on the fence right up to the day of the Expo.  Should I run the full marathon, downgrade to a half, or not run at all.  Physically, I felt fine, but a marathon is definitely taxing on the body.  Ironically, the health issues put the race into a totally new perspective for me.  My original goals were to finish under 4 hours and to keep running the entire distance.  Now I’d be happy to just finish the race. For real.

Expo day arrived.  My sister had arrived the previous night to run the race.  We wanted to drive the race course before visiting the expo to get a feel for the distance.  The course starts at Mel Lastman Square and heads down Yonge Street before making a side trip to Casa Loma.  I have taken the Finch subway line downtown so often, but I never expected that I would run pretty much the entire line!!  From Casa Loma, we would run down the Bayview Bypass towards Waterfront.  The last half of the course travels along the lake shore towards High Park before looping back and finishing at Queen’s Park.  With traffic, it took us about an hour and a half to drive most of the course! 

The Expo was itself was mediocre.  However, when I got to the line to pick up the race kits, I decided that I wanted to run the marathon.  A lot of people had dropped by to give their support these past couple days.  My sister had driven up from Rhode Island to run with me.  Pekoe would take a day off to cheer me on.  Everyone believed in me, how can I not believe in myself?  I mean, the worse I could do was walk.  lol.

The two highlights of the expo were a chat with a pysching team doctor and meeting Kathrine Switzer and her husband.  The former was interesting as my sister soaked up all the advise the doctor imparted.  For me, given my Ottawa Marathon experience, I could relate to everything she was talking about.  This was the first time where I realized how much experience matters.  You know exactly what you are getting yourself into. :P 

Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon as a numbered entry before women were officially allowed.  She recounted her Boston Marathon story to the crowd, but her constant interjections to buy her book for the full story annoyed me.  I was more impressed that she was able to bring down her marathon time from 4:20 to a 2:51 over her lifetime!  That’s ridiculous.  Since I had registered early for the marathon, I received a complimentary copy of her book 26.2 Marathon Stories.  Her autograph in my book:

For Joran:

To share our love of the marathon, with its challenges and its magic.

Kathrine Switzer and Roger Robinson
Toronto Marathon Oct 18, 2009

We went back uptown to Pacific Mall for the last supper. 

Tomorrow’s the big day. 

This is it. -MJ