I can't believe the Toronto Waterfront Expo is here already! What a great marathon event - the course is known to be flat and fast and last year Daniel Rono ran the fastest marathon in Canada on this course.

Here's a great shot of Jamie & baby admiring the marathon trophies at the expo last weekend! I can't believe he will be 11 months old next week - crazy how this year has flown by.






Last year I was 8 months pregnant and ran the 5k with Arma who was 7 months along at the time. It was cool to hear all the comments as people stopped by the booth and it was nice of everyone to ask how the babies were doing, etc.
This year Arma and I were both planning to run the half marathon as part of our marathon training programs (she's running Columbus in 2 weeks) and I'm running Marine Corps in 3 weeks.

OK - on to my race report. We had a very busy weekend at the expo - with the new camo skirts and the mini dot running and athletic skirts back in stock, it was a skirt frenzy! I barely had a chance to snack on anything, but managed to keep hydrating at least. I did have a few lara bars and bananas on hand thankfully.

Saturday night after the long day at the expo, we had my husbands high school reunion. It was the 50 year anniversary for the high school so all the graduating classes for Richview Collegiate were invited to attend this giant celebration. The hubby was super excited to go to the event and see all his old buddies and classmates. By the time we got back to the hotel and cleaned up it was 8:30p.m. I was dragging my feet on going since I was already exhaused from working the booth the last 2 days, but I knew how excited Jamie was so I "took one for the team" and mustered up a little energy to get showered, dressed, do my hair, etc. (When I secretly just wanted to take my traditional pre-race ice bath, hot shower, stretch, have my pre-run salmon & rice and go to bed!) The reunion party was awesome - I even got to meet the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper (Richview Class of 1978) see photo below. He used to run on the cross country team at Jamie's school.
He seems like a great guy! (I was so glad I decided to venture out to the reunion instead of staying in and going to bed early.) I even indulged in one glass of red wine, but followed it up with several glass of ice water. I pulled the running a marathon tomorrow card and pulled a Cinderalla, sneaking out around 11:30 and catching a cab back to the hotel with hopes of being in bed fast asleep by midnight.

These hopes were all shattered (at least the fast asleep part). There was a bachelor party going on in the room across the hall from us and - get this - a bachelorette party 2 doors down. It was party central on our floor until 3:30 a.m! I finally got some sleep at 3:30 for about an hour before the little guy woke up at 4:30 for his early feeding. I had just drifted back to sleep when my alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. I had to get to the start early since I realized I had forgotten to get my chip activated. I jogged the half mile to the start line and knew I was going to be in for a challenging race. My legs didn't have the bounce in them that they should have!

I managed to work my way up to the front of my corral for the race start and spotted my coach in the crowd who gave me a nice 2 thumbs up gesture. As the gun went off, I found myself sucked in by the lead pack and I was berating myself when my garmin gave my first mile split of 5:54 mile. Uh-oh, I said . I immediately slowed down to my planned pace and plodded along waiting for the heaviness in my legs to ease up. Normally after working the expo for 2 days it takes about 5k to work all the lead out of the legs and get warmed up. Well, this never happened for me today. Even after my first roctane gu - I never got that energy boost! At the halfway point, I was trying to hold on to my pace and very nervous about my level of exertion already. I did everything I could to hold onto my pace, but I could feel myself slowing down each mile. It was sure mind power that got me to the finish line this time...my legs had nothing in them. Here are my splits: 5:54, 6:28, 6:38, 6:42, 6:42, 6:59, 6:41, 6:42, 6:53, 6:42, 7:05, 6:49, 6:40. I finished in 1:29:09. I have never been happier to see a finish line, but didn't have the normal kick left to sprint across with a smile. I was completely drained this time. Definitely, my day of reckoning. Lesson Learned. Don't try to PR when you don't take care of your body and get adequate sleep & nutrition. All in all, it was still a great race for me and landed me 3rd place a/g and a cool mirrored plaque award.


















I'm proud to say that our "speedy skirt" Josiane Aboungono came in 3rd woman overall in 1:19:24.