Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2015

Sometime in the past month (a couple weeks ago as I start writing this.. maybe three or four by the time I finish), I ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. I wrote down my thoughts and notes for a couple days following the race, and I've been putting off turning those into a race report ever since. Seems like I can't start writing until I start running again. It's becoming "a thing". Maybe I should start writing my reports before the races so they're all ready to go when I am done, and I can relax!

In any case, it's Halloween and I'm all hopped up on candy and adult beverages. Seems like as good a time as any to start this thing. We'll see if I can finish within a week. (It's now a week later, and I am finishing this if it takes all night!)

On with it... I'll start off by giving "ye of scant attention" - if any of ye are actually left - the nutshell version:

My goal for this race was 2:50. I didn't quite get there, but I came pretty close (2:51:22), which is a PR by two minutes, 83rd place overall, and 11th place in my age group (missed it by that much!). I'm happy. I ran a solid race and I doubt I could have done much different to run faster that day. The only regret I have from my time on the other side of the border is that there were so many Canadian runners out there, and I didn't ask a single one of them what word they use to describe their weekly "mileage".

So, if you need to get back to putting out a grease fire or watching a cat video or something, there you go.


If you're still interested, feel free to move on to the unabridged version. And I do mean unabridged. I'm gonna mention poop at some point before too long. Fair warning.

Right. So the goal = 2:50. Secretly, this really means 2:49:xx because the xx's almost always get cut off. And seriously, how cool would it be to nonchalantly say "oh, I ran a two..fortysomething" in response to the post-race howdja-do's? It would be pretty cool. That's how cool it would be.

As is customary, in the weeks leading up to the race I expressed little confidence of getting anywhere near my stated goal. And (also according to custom), Coach Amy talked me down off the ledge. Then of course came the scrabbling back up onto the ledge and the second round of negotiations. I never leave those talks with a different goal than I entered with. She's either an excellent negotiator or a very poor one, I haven't decided. But she's certainly very good at convincing me to remain cautiously confident (a.k.a. terrified), and so I did.


Fast-forward to race morning:

The alarm on my watch went off at 5:30. I rolled out of bed and stumbled over to the little "sink room outside the toilet/shower room" place where I'd set up the coffee maker, and tried to get the thing to brew a cup. It took a while. Stephanie was the resident Keurig expert, having successfully produced coffee from it on two prior mornings. She and the kids were still sleeping though, and I was trying to keep it that way. As it turns out there is a very specific launch sequence for this machine. Why they decided to require the nuclear gold codes to get things running is beyond me, but I eventually figured it out.

Then I drank my coffee, ate a fig bar, and proceeded to poop. A lot. Why do I poop so much before Marathons? It's frightening. Actually, I suppose that could be the answer - perhaps they quite literally scare the crap out of me (pssst.. or maybe it's the FIG bars and the COFFEE?) Don't get me wrong, I poop a lot on a normal day too. I am a very prodigious pooper. But on race day, it's just too...much...information.

It was shortly after 6 AM when I finished with round one of the breakfast-ingestion-and-pooping routine, and it was about this time I realized that between the bathroom and the sink-outside-bathroom-room, there was only one place to actually sit down.

Ok... so what in the world is that room called, anyhow? I just tried to look it up online, but failed. All I got were a bunch of pictures of the sink-outside-bathroom-room's of hotels around the world, which doesn't help with the question.

I didn't want to stand. I could not envision sitting or lying on the outer bathroom room floor for 90 minutes, and I wasn't about to break the seal to the inner bathroom after what had just happened in there. So... I set my watch alarm for 6:45 and crept back into bed.

Now, either I fell right back asleep and had this crazy nightmare about how I slept through the race, or I stared at the ceiling and consulted my watch every 3 minutes to make sure I hadn't slept through it. Or maybe both those things happened. Regardless, at 6:45 a much sweatier version of myself went back into the bathroom complex and started on round two, which involved significantly less of the pooping and significantly more of the getting all my running gear on.

When I finally finished the prep work and left the powder room(?? hmm maybe?), two of the three remaining family members were awake. I said goodbye to them, blew a kiss to the sleepy one and headed out.

Side note - having my family here for the race was pretty cool. This is the first marathon in almost 4 years that they've all been able to go. We made a little mini family vacation out of the trip. I got custom arm warmers out if the deal, which I wore the entire race, and there were guaranteed high fives (side-fives, really) and lifted spirits at two different places in the course! It was awesome.

Hand-tailored and custom-painted!

Fast-forward again, to the start of the race:

The weather was no-excuses awesome. It was quite a departure from living in a giant sweat gland all summer. It was actually cold enough to spit a little snow at us before the race started, though it stayed dry for the race itself. I met up with the usual suspects and headed to the start corrals. After a brief photo op, of course.

Me, Cam, Don, Kris, Brent, Ashish

As race time approached, the national anthem of Greece was sung. This seemed kind of bizarre, but also somewhat logical given the roots of this particular distance. I didn't understand a word of it. Then they sang "Oh, Canada!", which is exactly like "The Star-Spangled Banner", right up to the point where you sing the first "Oh". It diverges a bit from there.

We passed around shoulder pats and wishes for a good race, Brent headed up to the black corral, and Ashish went over to the special chute for people who registered on the Canadian site (apparently when you do this not only is it a couple bucks cheaper, you get to automatically take 6 seconds off your finish time).

It was time to go.

This was my eleventh Marathon. I am supposedly a "veteran" who has my Shinola together. I had a decent plan, which looked suspiciously like many of my previous race plans, and I went out and ran the plan. There was that agonizing semi-last-minute change with the shoes from the white ones to the bright ones (I know you've been in suspense ever since my last post), but whatever.

Except for the time on the clock when I finished, I pretty much nailed my plan. Even if the plan was a little flawed (cue suspenseful dun-dun-duuuuuuhhhh! sound).

The race started as they normally do - one person following a car, and thousands of other people following the person in front of them. Not a whole lot happened early on. But I'll cram a few things into this paragraph anyhow. The first cup of water I took was so unexpectedly cold that I couldn't breathe for a couple seconds. Some of the early streets (and some later ones) had concrete down the middle where the streetcars go. I enjoyed running on that part because it was flat and level - until I stumbled a couple times on the streetcar tracks and decided that I should just run on the asphalt instead. I enjoyed some of the sights - the giant CN Tower, a giant modern windmill, and a giant, not-so-modern archway/column combo thingy with a statue of an angel and some other things on top. Unlike the "bathroom foyer", the internet didn't fail me here - it is called the "Princes' Gates".

Anyway, it really was pretty uneventful for that first 10k or so - at least until the first turnaround. Heading back towards the city and the now-not-so-giant CN Tower, I gradually became more and more aware of my effort level. I was feeling on the verge of crossing the line between being efficient and, well.. not being so efficient. I usually get into this mode around the 18-20 mile range (somewhere in the low 30's if you're counting Canadian miles), but I was starting to feel this way at about half that distance, which concerned me a bit.

This is where the flaw in my race plan - as well as a flaw in race-brain logic - begins to show up. I wrote that I wanted to "check in" every 5k with my pace to see how I was doing.

I could do enough math at the 10k sign to know that I was only about a minute behind, and so everything seemed cool. At this point in the race, being slower than pace was great! Everything according to plan.

But math is hard. And it gets even tougher when you're running for a while. Knowing my 5k split target (20:08), I had set my watch to take splits at 5k intervals. I knew that the GPS wouldn't be giving me real numbers - they almost always look a little faster than reality. But it would be close enough. It's only been about 2-3 seconds per mile off in the past. I just needed to know I was in the right ballpark...

Moving back into the moment - As the 15k mark was approaching, I glanced down at my watch. It had just taken another lap and I saw, through a fog of poor math, that I was pretty close to my goal pace. The watch said 20:09 was my split for that leg, which my brain interpreted as "close enough to be on pace". This kicked off the most mentally challenging part of the race for me, which I will illustrate by pretending there were two voices arguing in my head:

Carmen Sense:   "This is too hard right now! We need to back off!"

Will Power:     "But we're right on pace! We must reach the goal!"

Carmen: "Relax! There's plenty of time! We'll make it up at the end!"

Will:   "If we slow down, we're going to have to make up even more at the end! You think it's getting tough now! Just wait!"

Carmen: "Why are we using so many exclamation points?!?!"

Will:   "Because! This is supposed to be an argument!! And having it in ALL CAPS would be annoying!!!"

Carmen: "Ok! But back to the point! We can't do this!"

Will:   "Yes, we CAN do this!"

Carmen: "WE CAN'T DO THIS FOR A WHOLE MARATHON!!!"

Will:   "See, right there. The uppercase thing makes you look all late-70's. Same with the monospace font. What, are you typing this out on an Apple II or something?"

Carmen: "Fine. Can we just get back to the argument already?"

Will:   "Sure. We don't have a whole Marathon left! Just... some fraction of a Marathon!"

Carmen: "Some fraction?"

Will:   "Yeah, its... ok. So 42 minus 15 is uhhh.. 27? And then divide that by 42... goes in once... carry the zero... Wait, what was the question?"

Carmen: "Dude, c'mon. We can't do this for the whole whatever's left of the race."

Will:   "We can do it for another 5k, though."

Carmen: "Well yeah of course, but..."

Will:   "It was nice chatting with you, but I have a race to run. See you in 5k."

Carmen: "But... but..."

They did that a couple more times. Carmen started getting her point across in the long, lonely stretch after the half Marathoners disappeared, and the sense of expending too much effort would ebb and flow. But Will kept finding things to keep me going at a fairly decent clip. The first high-five installment from my kids. The faces of friends on that second out-and-back. A small group of three runners who passed me just after the halfway mark - those I latched onto, and kept them in sight for many miles (counted as "many" in either version of the mile you choose to read this in).

High Five #1

It was really tough. I wasn't expecting to have that kind of struggle anywhere near that early in the race. And there really wasn't much out there to take my mind off it except long, straight roads.

But then a funny thing happened when I saw the sign for 30k. Suddenly it all changed from "I don't know..." to "I can do this!" I'd been taking stock of my 5k GPS splits as I went, seeing them hover in my goal range - 20:00, then 20:15, then 20:11...

In my mind, I was on target. I had some catch-up work to do for sure, but I was getting excited. I waited patiently until the final turnaround (about the 33k mark, or somewhere between 20 and 21 miles), then I started to push. I had already almost caught up to that group of three who had unknowingly kept me afloat through the more desolate stretches of the course. When I pulled up alongside them, one said "Good! Keep it up!"

I replied with "You too - let's go!"

Same Guy - "Now?"

Different Guy - "Now!"

And so they came along. We stuck together as a small pack running side-by-side in silence for a short while. Mostly silence, anyhow. Every so often, another Rogue would pop up coming the other direction, and some shouts of encouragement would fly between us.

We had such a big group there, from the Team Rogue PM crew as well as the greater Rogue family. Not that there hasn't been a big Rogue presence for the last couple races, but this time there were a lot of us from Amy's group. It was a like Philly two years ago in that respect (it's really only been two years since Philly?) Out-and-back sections of any course can be kind of blah, but with all those familiar faces that becomes an opportunity to cheer my friends on, and vice-versa. That isn't something you normally get to do when you're all in the same race together.

Most of the Toronto runners from TRPM

The encouragement motivated me to push a little more. I pulled slightly ahead of the small pack, but I could hear the footfalls and breathing of my three new friends just behind. By the time we hit the 35k mark, only one set of footfalls remained.

I was pretty amped up at this point. I felt like was gradually getting faster and faster, feeling good. When I reached the 37k sign, I thought to glance at my watch to see where I was at. It said 2:30:4x.

I don't remember what the "x" was, but I did a quick (and remarkably accurate) math problem. I had 5k left, and when I added my 20:08 minute-per-5k goal pace to 2:30:40-ish, I came up with a number that was "around 2:50:50-ish". And I was definitely going faster than goal pace. If I could hold this pace, I'd get there in a 2:50:xx time at least! Maybe even two..fortysomething! I was super excited. I ran harder.

The last lingering set of footfalls had faded behind me and for a while, I was all alone. I got a few more boosts of energy from other Rogues, including Amy who said "Bill! It's your day!" or maybe "Bill! Wrong Way!". Pretty sure it was the former.

There was a little overpass, which on the way out seemed like nothing. On the way back though, it didn't feel anything like nothing, and I realized how tired my legs were getting. But I was so close to the end, and I just kept going, trying to catch up to the few runners I could see up ahead.

And then, from quite a distance I could see my family. Penelope in her purple coat and Ben in his red hat were easy to spot. I must have been too, since I look like just another traffic cone in the first picture below.

High Five #2

That gave me a final boost that lasted me all the way to the end of the race. From the point when I spotted them to the finish line, I ran the rest of the way as hard as I could (almost a mile). My legs were on the verge of mutiny by the end, but they held it together.

Rounding the last little corner, I saw the clock at the finish. My first thought was a bit of a shocked "What the hell?" Because I was fully expecting to see a number that started with 2:50, or maybe, just maybe even two-fortysomething. Instead I saw a number that started with 2:51 and was closing in on 2:52. That moment passed in an instant - I wasn't quite finished yet, but I knew I'd just run a pretty decent PR. I threw my hands up in the air as I crossed the finish line (video evidence suggests that my hands went more "out" instead of "up", but that's all I had left).

I stopped running, stopped my watch, and tried to catch my breath.  This quickly lead to a violent coughing fit reminiscent of my high school track days. It was bad enough that I thought I might knock myself over. One of the medical personnel came running over to me, asking if I was ok. I gave him a thumb's up since I couldn't actually speak, then bent over, dry heaved a couple times in between coughs, and stuck both thumbs in the air to show that I was even better than before. He hovered around me until I got it under control by breathing through my hands to warm up the air. Thankfully, the whole thing only probably lasted 30 seconds or less.

And then, I was great! I started celebrating my new PR while also wondering how in the world I could have possibly run that last 5k so much slower than I thought. It really felt strong and fast. Everything from the turnaround onwards felt strong and fast. I probably passed at least 10 people, despite there being almost nobody to pass. Was I just totally falling apart out there and hallucinating speed? Those thoughts left my brain when Different Guy (we met him earlier in the story) came over to me.

He put his hand on my shoulder and started thanking me in a Frenchly-tilted accent. "Oh man! That was great! Thank you! When you started to go, I said 'Yes, I'm going too!', I could for a while, even when the other guys fell back. But then I couldn't stay with you, but I could still see you, your hat and your shirt. You kept getting smaller, but you were pulling me! I just got a 13 minute PR! Thank you!"

That was really cool. To know that in some small way I helped to make Different Guy's day (in reality, his name is Olivier). And the gratitude was mutual. I told him that he had helped me just as much, since I spent a large portion of the race being pulled along by him and his friends.

Then we parted ways when the rest of the crew started showing up. The Brent-Ashish combo, Cam and I stood in the line to get our picture taken for what felt like forever. Mainly because I was rapidly turning into a popsicle and I just wanted to get some warm clothes on. But we got our little group picture, and I even paid for part of it. I never buy these things, but it's paid for, so might as well do something with it.

And that's pretty much the end of the story. Except...

In the back of my mind, I was still trying to understand what happened there in that last 5k. After a shower and some food, I was still pondering it. I looked through the splits on my watch, and saw that the speed was no illusion. I really did find some other gear at the end:

5k      20:21, 10k     20:10, 
15k     20:09, 20k     20:00,
25k     20:15, 30k     20:11, 
35k     20:12, 40k     19:43,
42.76k  10:21

Then it dawned on me. Or at least I thought it dawned on me. I must have read my watch wrong at 37k. That had to be it. It must have said something more like 2:32. That seemed plausible. But it still didn't sit right.

The next day, I decided that I would figure it all out by having SportTracks split the race into single kilometers and look at my time at 37k. Computers have magick in them, don'cha know?

It said I reached 37k at 2:28:59. Which is... completely the wrong direction for my theory to pan out. I had a sudden forehead-slapping moment. The watch was counting things in GPS watch distance! Which - for the purposes of a race - doesn't count.

That's a subject I keep threatening to write a whole tirade about, but never do. And now's not the time, either.

Anyway, what *must* have happened is that they had a race clock at the 37k sign for some reason, and... no, wait. That doesn't work, either. Thus, my intense need to know turned into "Dammit, I don't care." I stopped thinking about it.

But I did care. It was in there somewhere, gnawing at me. Some of you already know the punchline in all this, but I'll get to it anyhow.

Two days later I was driving to work behind one of the ubiquitous Subarus with a 26.2 sticker in the back window. I thought about that 42.2 sticker I saw at the expo. I had considered buying it just to be a dork, but I settled for taking a picture instead (to be an even bigger dork).

42.2.  42 point 2... minus 37... Not equal to 5.  I didn't drive off the road or anything. Just sort of shook my head.

There is one main takeaway here, for my future-self who is reading and planning for the next race. -- If you want to know where you're at on the course, do the math before the race! I really should have had some waypoints with expected times written down in the plan, but I didn't. Would it have changed anything in Toronto? I don't believe so. I left it all out there, just the way I planned.

Next up: Boston 2016. Two-fortysomething?