This was my 30th marathon but more importantly this was going to be a family marathon. My niece - Maddy goes to school in Montreal at McGill University and this race coincided with my sister- Anne Marie's (Maddy's mom) birthday. The idea was my brother-Paul and I would run Anne Marie's first marathon with her. Unfortunately Anne Marie broke her foot back in the spring and there was no way she could train for a full marathon. Anne Marie and Maddy ended up running the half marathon (Anne Marie's 3rd and Maddy's 1st!) while my brother and I ran the full (his 68th to my 30th). My goal for this race was to finish in under 4 hours and enjoy the the weekend with my family.
Montreal is a nice city to visit as far as site seeing and if you are interested in eating and drinking (but that doesn't help the days before a race)
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| Views of Montreal from Mont Royal |
A few notes:
- It was very warm and humid the days leading up to the race. I arrived on Friday afternoon and just felt hot and sweaty all the time. The morning of the race it was a bit cooler so the running conditions weren't bad.
- I usually have a routine of going to the expo and maybe doing some limited site seeing the day before the race. We went to the expo on Friday and ended up climbing Mont Royal on Saturday (this was not smart as I was wearing sandal type shoes with no support but hey I was being a tourist while my niece was the tour guide).
- My brother arrived Saturday afternoon and we all had dinner together at a place named Weinstien & Gavinos picked out by Maddy. Really good pre-race food and I highly recommend it.
- I made a mistake and decided to run without my usual compression shorts during the race, this would come back to haunt me.
The morning of the race we all met up and went to the subway together. The race provided subway passes to get out to the island where you start (it is a point to point race). I think this race had 20,000+ people in all the different distance so the subways were crowded. It also turned out to the be the 25th year of this race.
We got to the start in plenty of time to use the port-a-potties (lots of them available!). We hung around for awhile before splitting up into our various corrals (we were all in different ones except my sister and niece were in the same one)
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| Pre-race: Me, My sister Anne Marie, niece Maddy, brother Paul (yes he finds old sweaters at the back of his closet as throw away shirts before a race!). |
I had a few minutes before the race in the corral so I stretched a bit and moved around and then we were off. No problems with the start and many of the miles. We went around the island a number of different ways before taking the bridge back into the city. I really remember very little about the course itself because there wasn't that much noteworthy about it. I was on a race track they use for the formula 1 race for awhile and I passed by a brewery at one point (I always recognize that smell I lived in Milwaukee!). Mile 12-13 is the biggest hill on the course but overall the course isn't hilly compared what I am used to out here in Colorado. Sometime after mile 20 I could tell that 1. my legs had gotten a bit taxed from the walking around and climbing the previous day and 2. my hamstrings were misfiring and feeling crampy. I tried taking one of the salt tablets I had along with electrolytes to see if that would work. It did not as I got my first cramp around mile 22. In the future I need to always wear the compression shorts because I have never gotten hamstring cramps while wearing them. It was a battle to finish between walking out the cramps when they hit although it was in 4:05. I did see my brother during when I was on the back portion of an out and back and we yelled and waved to each other.
I met up with my sister and niece in the meeting area and enjoyed a warmish beer (it warmed up again so they had a hard time keeping the beer cold but it still tasted good). My brother finished up later and joined us and it turned out to be good race for everyone.
Funny note: several years ago I had encouraged Maddy to take up running and try some shorter races, she always said she wasn't a runner. After this race she couldn't wait to sign up for her next half!
Overall I enjoyed the race because I got to see my family. I live a long way from all of them so it is rare we get to see each other.
Here are my race thoughts:
Pro's
- Well organized logistics, it's easy to get to the start and from the finish even if you don't speak French (like me).
- Interesting city to visit if you like history
- Lots of sponsor hotels near the city and the finish area
- Good size expo, not too big or too small
- Nice 25th year finisher medal
- The race shirt was a sort of low key blue tech shirt with circular logo. I like it because I don't have many dark blue ones. Personally I like race shirts that aren't trying to be trendy or funky or are white.
- Due to the exchange rate right now it's a great time to visit Canada and buy stuff!
Con's
- The race course is kind of boring and the streets have lots of holes, I ended up running 26.5 miles dodging holes.
- My brother rated this course a 2 out of 10 because it really didn't have many memorable moments. I sort of remember running over the bridge and people at various spots but overall it just seems like a blur now.
- Montreal is not easy to get to from some cities. I can usually fly direct most places in North America but I had to connect through Chicago (which wasn't bad because I finished several books during the flights to and from).
Tomorrow is Run Streak day 1400, I have reached the point now where there are all these little milestones within the streak like passing 7,000 miles while running this marathon.
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