The Toronto Marathon: As a Pacer.

Okay, so I have to chalk this down as my best "Toronto Marathon" experience so far. Yesterday I ran the second half(ish) of the Toronto marathon with my good friend Suzy. She needed some company and some kind words to distract her in the last half of only her second marathon. She was all smiles and rainbows as we ran and she even talked a little more than I thought that she would. She finished very strongly and I am proud to call her a fellow marathoner.


The day started out early with us meeting at the SC at 7am. Driving into Willowdale was a breeze. I even inflicted a little bit of nostalgia on my passengers as we drove through my old stomping grounds. Parking was easily found on Kingsdale. We hit the bathrooms, found our fellow runners and then cheered for the start of the Half of a Marathon. Sally and JP looked amazing and so did the bandits who were pacing (the general and Eduardo). We then got ready for the big race, pinning on our bibs, attaching the timing chips, and lubing up. We then checked the runner's bag and said hello and good luck to all the friendly faces that we knew. Soon enough the horn blew and they were off. As pacers, we were able to see the crowd of runners go by on Yonge St and yell out a few "you are looking great!" and "you're almost there!"'s before we headed back to the car for the drive down to Queen's Park. Once there, we hopped on the subway to join the route just south of King Station. We arrived just in time to see John go by, shortly followed by Steve and Theresa. Cheering there for a little while was a blast because this marathon has quite a few "dead spots" where there isn't anyone around. Soon enough I was running along and had shed my throw away (that I had actually picked up from the start line pile of throw aways and I was afraid that someone would point at me and say "hey, that was my jacket!")

The pacing part of the marathon was a blast. Running down to Queen's Quay and then out along the 16km loop along the waterfront trail turned out to be an easy run. There were some definite spots where you had to think "what were the organizers thinking?" At one point we were running in the single lane on QQ with the high curb from the sidewalk on one side and the median for the street car on the other side. There were cones down the middle of our running lane and we were sharing this lane with the oncoming runners. The space was so tight that we basically had to run single file. I can only imagine what people were doing when they stopped for walk breaks. I couldn't understand why they couldn't shut down the whole street?

The size of the pathways were almost as bad, especially when you add the water stations to the mix. There was at least one water station where the volunteers were busy handing out water to runners going both ways. This made it nearly impossible to run through the water station. It was like trying to run through a grocery store on a Saturday morning.

After running the out and back section of the marathon it was time to tackle the final 3.5km up University Ave. The hill starts as soon as you go under the Gardner. The good news is that the whole northbound side of the street was closed and we were able to pick and choose where and how fast to run. The bad part of this run is that you can see Queen's Park all the way from the bottom of university and it always looks further than it really is. When we finally got to Queen's Park we were greeted by the crowds of spectators and friends. It was a welcome sight to be able to see the finish line through the trees as we came to the final 200m. It then turns into a great little downhill and the fun is over. Time to collect a medal.