The fall Marathon is set for Toronto, as in Ontario, as in Canada! My first international race!
Well, sort of. Canada is perhaps as domestic as you can get, internationally-speaking. At least if you are from the U.S. And I am. Of course, I spent the first 18 years of my life only a couple hours' drive from The Great White North, and legend has it that I was conceived somewhere between 10 and 15 miles south of the 49th parallel. So Canada used to kind of be like my backyard. Only bigger. And further away.
So, ok, maybe it is kind of half-international. After all, you can drive into Canada without a passport. They won't let you back into the U.S. without one, but that's a different story.
Despite my childhood memories of carefree frolicking back and forth across the border with my imaginary dog Gretzky, the more I look into it I think this place really is a different country. First of all, dates are written day/month/year there. Secondly, when you are in Canada, poutine isn't a foreign food. Need I say more?
I will anyhow.
Probably the most international thing about the place is that they use the "metric system" by default. It's like this whole other way of measuring things! Instead of 26 miles and 385 yards, the race will be 42.195 kilometers! I worked through the math, and that's almost 42,195 meters!
There's a problem though. The last time I encountered meters in a Marathon, it didn't turn out so well. It was on the x-axis of an elevation chart, which I naively assumed was listed in feet. My bad.
However... I will not make that mistake again. I will be prepared. If I'm doing this thing, I'm all in! By the time mid-October rolls around, I will know what it feels like to run in kilometers instead of miles. How? I changed my watch over to kilometers this weekend. You heard me. Yeah.
Honestly, this could go either way, but I'm optimistic that at least thinking in kilometers for the next six months will help me appreciate Canadian customs and traditions while I'm there. Plus, it gives me something to obsess about when the race approaches. I already know I don't have to worry about the weather. I did a little research. It turns out that the hottest temperature on record (ever) for the city of Toronto is only 40.6 degrees!