Toronto Goodlife Marathon

On Sunday Oct 17^th I ran the Toronto Goodlife Marathon, finishing in 4:03:40.

On Saturday I had run the Vulture Bait 50k in a PR time, but injured myself slightly during a fall. Chest, hand and one foot were hurting, but not too badly. So after I got home Saturday night and getting my gear ready for Sunday morning, I had an Epsom bath soak, grabbed the heating pad for my back (it was giving me problems due to the chest) and managed to get some restless sleep.

Got to the race site about 10 minutes before the half marathon started, but couldn’t see any of my group that were running it.

Got ready, my bag checked and spent the time before the race with a co-worker and a RunningFree teammate. Both asked me what I thought I would run and I decided 4 hours due to the chest hurting.

Last porta-potty stop and jumped into the end of the crowd as the race started out. Wanted to start out slow to see how everything felt. Didn’t feel too bad but continued to hold back until through Hog’s Hollow (I don’t do well on uphills anyway). After that I started to pick it up quickly.

Another great day for weather, 57F average, but a bit breezy. (Had one bad stretch where the sun came out, without much shade, around 34k, where I started to overheat. But doused some water over my head at the next aid station and was fine after that).

I went through the half under 2 hours, but in the second half the legs were feeling a little fatigued. I also had to adjust my shoe around 25k as my banged up foot was bothering me a bit. Still I was doing okay and passing a lot of runners in the last 6k. Held my own on the long uphill into Queen’s Park spotting my teammate from before the race. Hit the flat and gave it everything I had left passing him with less than a k to go. As I went by him, he congratulated me on meeting my goal.

Finished in 4:03:40, beating my teammate across the line in just over a minute (grudge match in 2 weeks).

Quite happy with finishing so closely to the time I had predicted.

Met up with some other RunningFree members, who all did well.

Some light refreshment, a little massage and now for some recovery time.