Five hours before the race, I was rushing to finish this book that I could not put down, Cecelia Ahern’s Thanks for the Memories. What a great book; I love Ahern’s writing style: it’s part reality, part fairytale and I wish she would write faster because I’ve now read all her books.

After finishing the book, I made myself a yummy brunch (pancakes + eggs) and then I was suddenly running late. 3pm found me still at home, scrambling to attach the chip to my shoe, at 3:30pm I was dressed for the race and my sister was trying to get some shots of me.

The bus I thought I would take zoomed by as we were discussing where to take the pictures. Finally, at 3:45pm, my dad, sister and I hopped in the car to take us to the bus station (bus was the recommended mode of transportation) with a goal of arriving 30 minutes before the race. And we did.

We made our way through thousands of people to the starting area. I was several hundred metres away from the start line and my dad kept pointing to the start line to tell me to get my butt there. I explained that only the fast runners would be there so my location, middle to back, was probably the most appropriate. My chip wouldn’t be activated until I crossed the start line anyway, so it didn’t matter. I talked to some other runners walkers while waiting, and to my sister and dad who were waiting just beyond the railing.

A few announcements later and the race began, and I started running. First up was a hill and as I ran up it, I made some observations:

• wow, it’s hard to run with thousands of people around you
• Why are these people ahead of me walking?
• How do I get around them?
• Ouch, someone keeps kicking my heels. Maybe I’ll move over to the sidelines—ouch!

I didn’t expect to be near the front of the line and I wasn’t, but I didn’t think that I’d have trouble passing people. A lot of people were running in groups and lined up horizontally in front of me so getting around them, especially parents who were holding their children’s hands, was a challenge. Early on in the route, a cheering man stuck out his hand to give me a high five and told me I could do it. That was the first of hundreds of strangers who would stand on the sidelines, encouraging us on and it was awesome!

The route was lovely, and the weather gorgeous! I’ll walk it one day and take pictures. We ran around the canal so those of us bringing up the rear could see those people who finished the race in 30 minutes or less already doing the last kilometre and a half of the race on the other side of the canal.

Some of my other observations were:

Five kilometres is longer than I thought. With the C25K program, you can measure the your run by either distance or time (I chose time) so I thought I was running/walking close to if not a full 5K. And I had gone for 5K walks with friends before so I thought I knew the distance fairly well. Maybe it was in my head but this run was longer than I expected.

People rock! It was hard to not break into a run despite being exhausted when you’d hear people cheering or saying “Go Team Diabetes!” One particularly memorable part of the route, where I ran my hardest was around the 3.5km mark where the Canadian Diabetes Association water station was. As I ran through, the people manning the water stations went nuts, cheering and clapping and making noise, just for me (lol, I’ll assume the others running for the cause were far ahead!) One volunteer even ran a couple of hundred metres with me, carrying a huge water jug, before leaving to go back to his station. It was so encouraging and when I slowed to a walk I thought my heart was going to give out.

It was neat going through the residential areas and seeing people sitting on their porches, smiling and sharing more encouraging words. One guy had a pot and wooden spoon that he was banging against it…that made me smile.

Around 750 metres from the finish line, we started seeing signs indicating that the end was near. That was when I discovered how long 100 metres is! Even though my dad and sister said they’d be at the CDA tent, they managed to make it to around the 500 metre mark and when I saw them, I started running again (can you see me in the crowd?).

My sister caught a bit of me on the left, waving:

Even though I was bringing up the rear, crossing that finish line felt AMAZING! I wanted to pump my fist or throw my hands in the air or whoop but shyness kept me from doing that. It felt so good though!

Following the race, was the huge lineup to get your chip removed. Then we were handed our medals, corralled through the recovery area for Gatorade and water, then through the food area for oranges, bananas and granola bars, then the very slooooow shuffle to the area I had planned to meet my family, and show off my medal:

You can get your name and time engraved on your medal, but the process for getting this done was a bit of a mess. First you had to go find your name on the posted list (but the list is in order of time, not name, so you had to have taken note of the official time when you crossed the line). Then you had to get in a second line and give your time and name to the engravers, then line up in the area to collect your engraving once it was done. We got through that and headed home, arriving home around 8pm.

It was great day and a good experience. Right after the race, I was telling my sister that I don’t think I’d do it again because it was longer than I thought it would be and I wasn’t thrilled with my finishing time but even with my sore hips today, I’m almost looking forward to giving the C25K program another try. Taking part in a smaller race, where I won’t feel like my momentum was halted every time I ran into a wall of walkers, might help too.

Oh, did I forget something? Like posting my finishing time? Here it is:

Here are the important stats:
Official time (from when the race started): 53 minutes, 24 seconds, 9 milliseconds
Chip time (from when my foot crossed the start line to when it crossed the finish line: 50 minutes, 4 seconds, 0 milliseconds
My finish for my age group (female, between ages of 25 and 29): 353/390
My finish for my gender: 3100/3823

Filed under: Family, Operation 5K by jummy