Sunday, May 29, 2016
Time: 4:56:58
Overall Place: 616/807
It's been a short week at work, back on Tuesday and leaving again on Thursday. I could get used to these three day weeks.
Just found out this week that my next marathon after this weekend has been cancelled. Minneapolis for the first week of June is a no go. Looks like the new number is 29. Don't think I didn't try and replace it. Nothing within a day's drive is out there.
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| Photo bombed |
Staying with our daughter Wendy and her husband Paul. Wendy was due earlier this week to have their first baby. This is great timing because we planned this marathon well over a year ago so this all works out great.
Plane finally arrived. Everyone is excited; it's the West Jet Disney plane. Yeah. I asked some flight attendants if we could sing Disney songs. She invited me to start. Not gonna happen.
Nice flight, made it in good time, Paul and Wendy at the airport to pick Heidi and myself up. Wendy is beaming, she looks cute pregnant. Hope the baby comes this weekend. I think it's a girl and they call it Edwina.
Looking forward to sleeping in the next two days.
Off to bed we go.
Friday May 27, 2016
No baby yet!
Had a great night’s sleep. I've been looking forward to sleeping in on Friday and Saturday. My body really needs that.
Had some great breakfast, broke the routine of cereal and blueberries, and had bacon and eggs. That's significant for me. I am a creature of habit.
I planned to go for a run after breakfast, but not before I waited for a while. Wendy planned a route for me. Yeah well, that didn't go so well. I planned to go for about 3.5 miles. I ran 5 miles and got to see a lot of the neighborhood. Wendy and Paul live just outside of Calgary in Airdrie.
Came back from the run and had a shower.
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| Never get in between food and a past due pregnant woman |
After the market we went to the Cross Iron Mall. It is the largest in Calgary and the one everyone goes to. Wendy didn't last too long. Reason? She is pregnant and past her due date. Can't say we didn't try helping her along to have this baby.
Went home, had some supper and watched the Blue Jays game. Wendy and Paul are quite the avid Jays fans.
I have to mention, Wendy makes a mean blueberry pie. Wow was it good.
Paul was working late so we barely got to see him, but now he is off for a couple of weeks.
Saturday May 28, 2016
No baby yet!Slept in and slept well.
Expo day.
My sister Elenore and her husband Rob came to Calgary from Edmonton for the weekend so that my sister could run the 10K race. They also have a daughter who lives in Calgary, her name is Becky. We were going to pick my sister up and go to the Expo in the morning. We found the Expo where they have the Calgary Stampede in one of the buildings. What a nice Expo. Lots of different vendors and lots of free giveaways. The coolest thing was that they had some runners on treadmills trying to set some world records. One guy did over 260 Kms in 24 hours, yikes. They broke 7 world records in the process.
After the Expo we headed for home and picked up some food so we could make a pre-race meal for my sister and family.
Great food, great time, lots of pasta. Love spending time with my sister and her family.
I laid out flat ed and posted it to Facebook.
Time for bed and an early start.
Woke up at 3:45, who knew that time came twice a day.
Plan was for Heidi and I to drive to Becky's house, then we would all drive to the LRT Park & Ride and take the train to the Stampede grounds for the start finish. All worked out great.
Only one issue. I made the mistake of asking Rob if the car could do 180 kph. My sister got this new car and a simple yes or no would have been quite adequate. No, he had to show me. Good thing I didn't ask if it could do 220 kph.
Made it to the Stampede grounds, lots of activity. Met our friend Wendy from Winnipeg who came out for the race to assist the Running Room where she works in Winnipeg.
We handed in our drop bag and I read our runners prayer. This has become a pre-race tradition since I started on this journey.
This race is unique in that they offer a 50K Ultra, as if running a marathon weren’t enough. There is actually a very passionate group that really enjoys running more than marathons and will run up to 7 day races. These are amazing athletes.
The 50K, marathoners, and half marathoners all lined up together. Oh Canada was performed by a local girls group and was very impressive I might add.
The weather was perfect for running with temperatures around 7 C and going up to plus 16 C.
With the 3 distances there were about 4000 runners.
The gun went off and we all moved forward to the start line. In case you are not familiar with running events, we wear timing chips in our race bibs so our time doesn't start until we cross the timing mat at the start line. There are two times which are considered. The gun time is used for the elite athletes because they line up at the front and this is what the world records are taken from. The rest of us runners run to the chip time, because sometimes it can take minutes before you cross the start line and it wouldn’t be fair for runners if it takes say 10 minutes to cross the line, especially if you are trying to Boston qualify.
The first few miles went out towards the Bow River and we were quite tightly compacted so it was hard to get a good line around the corners. Eventually we thinned out a little more and it was easier to move about. I was feeling pretty good and moved at a nice pace, comfortable yet not too slow. My breathing however did feel a little labored. Calgary is about 3000 feet above sea level and it does make a difference.
About 6 miles into the race the half marathoners split from the 50k and marathon runners. We immediately took a left and climbed for what seemed like about a mile. I wasn't expecting this. Legs started getting tired and I knew it wasn't going to be a fast race. This was probably my least favorite part of the race. We had some main roads that were open to traffic and had parked cars on the other side. I've never been in a race this close to traffic. We finally started our decent toward the downtown and that was nice. They have a lot of bridges on this course going over the Bow River. I couldn't even tell you how many times we crossed the river. The last six or so miles of the course were very interesting. About four miles of it was along the river and it was run twice by the 50K runners so there was lots of activity. I even met friend and fellow runner from Winnipeg. He ran the wrong direction with me to take a few pictures, and then returned to his correct direction. Junel is a very inspirational and motivating leader in the running community. It was nice to see his friendly face. The other thing I liked about the last few miles of the course is that it goes around the downtown and looks very impressive.
I had a decent time going into the last six miles but just couldn't hold it as I walked more than usual. It's usually in the last couple of miles that I probably run about eight out of every ten minutes compared to the beginning of the race I might walk maybe 30 seconds in 20 minutes and running at a much faster pace. My body is so fatigued right now which is why I am losing about 30 minutes a marathon if not a little more. My body feels really good but I'm just tired.
It was nice to see Heidi and my sister at the finish line with Rob and Becky. Elenore completed her 10k race and Heidi her half marathon. Rob and Becky didn't run this race so they had to wait a long time for me to finish and I really appreciated it.
Heidi had a little bit of trouble at one of the aid stations where she had about a 17 minute wait for a Porto potty. This is just something that happens to many runners.
After the race I was able to do some stretching on mats provided by Good Life. One of the instructors tried to give me some tips, but this what I do every morning for 35 minutes. She kept showing me stretches I already do. She was very nice though.
We went to the train station and grabbed our train to the park & ride and then it was off to get some food. You won't believe it, yup, Chinese food. Only this food was real and very tasty.
We drove back to Becky's house, said our goodbyes, got in our car and drove home. That was an adventure because if you don't update your navigation system at least every two days they have built a new street in the meantime and you are lost. It was only about 20 minutes so we made good time despite the detours.
On the way home to Wendy's house we picked up about ten pounds of ice. You're probably thinking, wow that's a lot of ice for my drink. Well it's not for my drinks. It went along with the other ten pounds and into my ice bath. I sit in a bath tub full of ice water for about 10 minutes to cool the legs whenever I can. This helps tremendously in recovery.
Well this is where the focus of our trip changes a bit. Our daughter Wendy went into the hospital Sunday morning to have a baby, our timing was perfect right? Wrong, our new grandson was born an hour and a half after we left Calgary on Monday so we were unable to meet him. Well, the best laid plans don't always work out that way. It was funny because if everything would have worked out we would have seen our new little grandson like the doctor said and we would have gotten a ride to the airport. Fortunately we had a backup plan and called a cab to take us to the airport. It all worked out in the end and we arrived back home in time to go to work.
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| Our new little grandson Chase Jeremiah |
Well, only three more weeks till I wrap up this part of the journey to run 30 marathons in 15 months which means three more marathons. Actually there are only going to be two more as Minneapolis cancelled their marathon for the weekend coming up. This is really good for me because since I couldn't find a replacement, I get a full three weeks of rest until the double header. It's been a great run so far and I am tired, but we need to finish this off strong.
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