The Toronto Marathon was a great event this weekend. We kicked the weekend off with the Health & Fitness expo at the Sheraton Centre in downtown Toronto. We were thrilled to be located directly adjacent from the Yo-Pro booth (yummy healthy high protein frozen yogurt) and right next to the massage booth. I was joined in the running skirt booth by our super star personal trainer & uber runner Judika Klose who helps me out in the skirt booth for the Canada events. Judika is a super mom of 5 kids (yes, that's not a typo...5!) and a personal training business. After her 5th child she was over 200 pounds and now look at her (she's wearing the lilac plum outfit in the video from our marathon Relay team this weekend). She's such an inspiration and oh so fast (she runs around a 1:20 half!) Despite recovering from a serious ankle injury she was able to take on 2 legs of our relay and ran a 38 minute 10k - sweet! One speedy skirt for sure. Thanks Judika - you rock the skirts!



We had a speedy marathon relay team made of up Krista Boylea 1-10.1k, Judika Klose 10.1-20k, Agnes Ngunriji 20-25k, Cindy Lynch 25-30k, Antony Mwangi 30-35k & Josiane Aboungono 35k-42k, finishing in 2:42. Unfortunately Jamie didn't make it up to the first leg in time to capture Krista (she had the big hill in the starting leg 10k!) and was flying! Josiane & Agness and Antony were all coming down from big races the previous day at the Oasis Zoo Run (see story below)







Getting a nice congratulatory hug from womens running pioneer Katherine Switzer.





The last 3 women of our relay team accepting our relay award at the finish. The awards were all presented by Katherine Switzer.








Oasis Zoo Run
While we were working the booth at the Goodlife Toronto Marathon Expo, our speedy skirts Josiane Aboungono was racing the last race of the Canada Running Series, the Zoo Run 10k. Josiane had a great race, she was in the lead when she took a wrong turn on the course and had to work to get back on the course & catch back up with the other leaders. Unfortunately, while she was re-passing the lead female Lioudmila Kortchaguina, according to Josiane and the other lead runners that were in the lead pack, Liudmila grabbed the back of Josiane's jersey and pulled her close and then (get this!) gave her a sharp elbow in the ribs. Josiane fell back and fought the rest of the way to the finish and still managed to come in 3rd female overall....she was not happy with the sportmanship of Lioudmila. Josiane & her coach reported this incident to the race officials, and were told, since it wasn't captured on tape or film it was "part of racing" and there was nothing they could do about it. Wow - when I heard this I was really sad. It's very unfortunate that this type of bad sportsmanship and apparently running combat (or hand-to-hand combat as the Canada Running Series race report termed it) is acceptable by these race officials. After talking to some other elite female runners, this apparently isn't an isolated incident with this runner - she has pulled other similar stunts to other top female runners. Shame on you Lioudmila! Maybe if she wore a running skirt, she could be a speedy skirt that wouldn't have to resort to taking combat cues from her husband on the sidelines.













Photo of Liudmila at the finish line.

To finish this recap on a positive note. Josiane's top finish at the Oasis ZooRun 10k this weekend landed her the points to finish out the Canada Running Series in first place. Woohoo! Congrats to Josiane, Nicole and the other top female finishers in Canada Running Series.

Women:

1st  Josiane Aboungono      Milton, ON      130 points   $2500
2nd  Nicole Stevenson       Toronto, ON     121 points   $1500
3rd  Lioudmila Kortchaguina Toronto, ON     105 points   $1000
4th  Nancy Tinari           Coquitlam, BC    96 points    $750
5th  Lisa Harvey            Calgary, AB      90 points    $500