Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront half-Marathon
I took this particular week on the easier, relaxing side with the Niagara Falls International Marathon still fresh on my mind. Meanwhile, there was lots going on leading up to the local Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon happening exactly one week after the Niagara Falls. I signed up for this race months ago, speculating that I should have more than enough rest days to recuperate.
There was also another event called the Ghost Race happening in Toronto as hosted by Lululemon from October 13 - 22. Essentially, it was a live run that starts from a certain marked location and keep following through the hints within their set course. Once the course is completed, the raw GPS data must be uploaded onto the Strava app for validation. In the Toronto region, the run was located at the Martin Goodman Trail. I ran through this route with my buddy that was making a short homestay visit while we were picking our packet pickup at the Exhibition Grounds located in the Enercare Centre. I noticed that this event was mostly hosted in major cities. Although this is fine, it would be much preferred if they also have events like these in the uptown area.
A couple of days after the Ghost Run, it was finally the main feature - the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon. For me, this was effectively a mini redemption run - to expel some frustrations from the week before and also rectifying the smaller actions that attributed to last week's fuck up.
This year, I started all the way at the end of the first (red) corral. I was banking that this would give me ample of space to maneuver around various runners and set a constant, sustainable pace for the remainder of the run. The notion of "don't start bursting out of the floodgates too fast" was by and large from the very start of the race - especially since I committed such a rookie mistake still fresh from one week prior. I was very cautious of my pace for the first five kilometres of the race until the slight downhill segment (similar to the end line of the Sporting Life 10K area at the bridge and then the down slope) and then I started to increase my pace comfortably from the 5th kilometre to the 13th km where you do the turnaround at the Lakeshore Boulevard. I also conserved enough energy to make a huge boost by delaying my energy gel intake so that way the calories kick in right when you start running uphill at the 14 - 17th km slot. At the end of it all, I managed to register in a final chip time of 1:32:46 which almost eclipsed the all-time PB time I got back in June 2017 from the Barrie Half Marathon. Not bad considering this was a secondary cool down from the full-marathon from the week before. More importantly, it acts as a huge confidence booster with another few weeks until a second redemption opportunity knocks in the form of the Hamilton Road2Hope Marathon. As my university's universal motto goes, "keep pushing on!" (or Surgite!) - MW
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