Jane's ATB Race Report -
WARNING -- Really LONG!After losing my last night?s post, Heather has suggested to me that I write them in Word and then copy them into the post and I won?t lose them again. My daughter is brilliant!
Well, considering that I haven?t felt great for the past five weeks or so, and the fact that I had dreams all Saturday night about running in the dark, with a map, and not being able to find the proper route and not being able to finish, I was happy just to see that big inflatable finish line!!! I really wasn?t sure if I was going to be able to do the whole 30K and it was nagging at me from inside ? you know, that little voice that says ?You might not do it, you might DNF, you might need to bail? and you just try and shut it out. I figured unless things got REALLY bad, I could always walk.
Race day dawned and it was beautiful out. What a change from last year when we had freezing rain over night and mixed rain and snow for the run! It sure was a good thing that they changed the finish line to the inside of Copps Coliseum to avoid the bad weather this year! Heather, Petra, Cathy and I went down to Tim?s for breakfast. It sure felt strange to be sitting in Tim?s with our running friends and eating BEFORE running! We met up with the rest of the group in the lobby ? except for Dave! Dave, I don?t know where you ended up, and I thought we were supposed to be on the 2nd floor, but I guess it was the first. I looked up there but didn?t see you!! I even wondered if you had made it out of your room after all your carbo-loading on Saturday.
We made our way to the start line which was crowded ? we checked out the speedy Kenyans and the fast white guys at the front. There was Jutta right in the thick of them! I was excited that I got to wish her luck ? I am sure that I was partly responsible for her great performance!!
Rather than squeezing in next to her (it was pretty crowded up there), we decided to make our way to the back of the pack. After all, isn?t it better to be doing the passing instead of getting trampled by speedy runners?
When the gun sounded, we were off ? well, eventually after three minutes! The weather was glorious. Much better than we could have even wished for. Quite warm sometimes, and a cool breeze sometimes. It made it hard to know what to keep on or take off, but I am definitely not complaining!
The first 15K went pretty fast. Heather, Ryann and I ended up together, after making a bathroom stop. I was amazed at how fast the women were getting in and out of those port-a-potties. Sandy, Ryann actually reminded me to gel when she said that she had to at 7K! When we got to Beach Blvd we took another pit stop at the porta-potties and continued on. I like this street because of all the different houses on it. I don?t think Heather and Ryann appreciated them as much as I did as they didn?t seem to think they were all that special!
We reached the 15K point where Janet, Patti, Beth and Heather?s partner, Tracy, were waiting for us. We took off and immediately came to the lovely bridge ? the one with the massive holes and you can visualize getting your foot stuck in one of those holes and possibly losing your leg! Or at least landing on your face. It is like the Baker?s Island bridge but about 10 or 20 times longer! We made it across there and ran along a boring stretch of highway until we hit the area where the ?well off? people live. I ran with Heather's partner,Tracy, for awhile as I wanted to visit with her. However, she was full of vim and vigour and after a hill or two, I realized that there was no way I would be able to keep up to her pace and live to finish the race. So I walked and waited for Janet, Patti and Beth to catch up, which didn?t take long as they weren?t far behind. We ran for awhile, even sang a song to entertain ourselves ?There she goes just a running down the street, singing do-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do?. The people living in this neighbourhood were great! They even set up their own water stations with water in Disney cups and provided cut up bananas and oranges. I wonder who was the lucky person who got to clean up THAT mess all over the road??? We ended up separated from Patti and Beth as Janet and I walked through a water station, and Patti and Beth kept running. Yes, the cops were definitely cuter on the last half and we made sure we thanked them all, even they WERE getting paid. We thanked everyone that cheered for us or offered us a cup of water or Gatorade. Volunteers told us we were doing a good job and we told them that
they were doing a good job too and thanked them for making the race possible. A lot of them were high school students and they really seemed into making sure they did a good job for us.
Janet and I steadily made our way past the funeral home with the party going on outside, past the crematorium and down into the valley, past the little guy with the boom box playing "We will, We will Rock you" and across the wood bridge to the bottom of THE HILL. We had already decided we would walk it. I was so busy telling her about Bart Yasso, the guest speaker at the pasta dinner, that I almost missed some of our Running Mania friends cheering for us half way up the hill. We made it to the top and knew we only had less than 4K to the end. Passed the grim reaper, who seemed to be luring us to go with him but we resisted! It was ironic that we passed three cemeteries in the last 15K of the run.
With 2K left, and the red C of the Copps Coliseum in view, Janet and I started talking about what parts of our bodies were hurting on us and how they felt. Then we switched the conversation to what we were going to do at the finish line. Would we hold up our arms? Lock our hands? Sprint the last few meters? We agreed we would cross together, and we probably wouldn?t be up to much of a sprint. Other than that, we were too brain dead to make a decision, so we decided to go with what felt good at the time, and if anyone was close to us (they weren?t) we would make sure we got in clear view of the cameras.
As we came to the last turn, we saw Petra, Sue and Cathy cheering us on! Girls, it was great to see you out there! It really helped get me over the finish line. We continued on ? it seemed that they were going to make us run around the whole building, when all of a sudden they directed us down into this deep dark hole! Were we going down into a parking garage? Because it sure felt like it. My left IT had been twitching for the last 1.5K. Well, I hit that steep ramp and it just starting twanging! And then the right one joined in! The guy at the bottom of the ramp was laughing as I yelled ?OW, OW, OW? every time each foot hit the slope of that ramp! Then we were around the corner and in the arena. I don?t know for sure what we did at the finish line ? I think we held hands and held them up, but can?t say for sure. It felt like I was jumping around, but I couldn?t have been as my legs just hurt too much for that.
We made it through the chute, got our medals, and started to look for Janet?s Mom and Heather. Heather promptly told me that they ran out of food, which strangely didn?t concern me too much. I guess because I just eaten that yucky recovery gel and I knew I had lots of food in the hotel room.
I enjoyed this run ? mainly because of the people I ran with and the people I met there. It wasn?t my best time, running wise, but that isn?t really important. Some day I may try to beat my last year?s time but this wasn?t the time for me to do it. Instead, I got to run with Heather on her first 15K and see her really feel good about it. I think that it is apparent that we were happy by the photo that Adam took as we were approaching the handover point. And I got to run, and laugh and sing with Janet for almost all the last half, and Patti and Beth for a part of it. And I will remember the laughing and singing and friendships long after the finishing time has faded from my memory.
