Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2016

My last racing event for the year was the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon http://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com/en/index.htm on Sunday, October 16th. 

This is a course that runs through downtown Toronto, along the lakeshore, into the beaches and finishing in the heart of downtown at Nathan Philips Square, right at city hall.  Its a fun course with a really lively and festive atmosphere due to all the community support the event receives. 

This being my final race of the season, I felt I was well trained for the event.  It was my second marathon that year, I had been running lots of mileage and intensity runs all summer and been eating right.  I was optimistically hoping for an even better finish time than my spring marathon (3:34:38), dare I hope for a 3:30:00?!  

The rain began to fall on us as we lined up in the starting corrals, but a little rain never stopped runners before. It was a warmer than usual Oct day, with a starting temp of 18C, so the rain didn’t feel so bad, although it was a little heavier than I would have liked.

The marathon started well, but by the halfway point I knew it wasn’t going to be a personal best for me.  At the 21.1km mark I was more than 3min behind my run plan.  Normally it only takes me 1:45:00 to reach this point, but today it was 1:48:28.  Not great.   

I began to feel tight in my hips and lower back.  I couldn’t open up and relax into my stride like I normally do when I’m running well. It began to be painfully obvious to me that I had not given myself enough recovery time after my last major endurance event - MSC Barrelman half-iron triathlon (2km swim, 90km bike, 21km run) I did on Sep 18, less than a month ago (28 days).  

The last half of the marathon didn’t get any easier, I tightened up even more as the run went on, and eventually I crossed the finish line at 3:54:52, twenty minutes slower than my spring marathon finishing time.  Disappointing yes, but a good experience for me nevertheless.  I learned a valuable lesson this day - I need more recovery time between major endurance events, and more time to relax and release tight muscles. I expect utilizing more foam rolling, stretching and massage therapy technique for myo-fascial release, as well as rest, will be vital for this.   I will be taking all this into consideration when planning my racing schedule for 2017. 

Looking at the big picture, I still ran a sub 4 hour marathon, and any day you get out for a long run is still a good day.  Kudos to everybody who went out to run whether it was the full, half marathon or the 5km. And thanks to everybody who came out to support us along the way.