Valdir's races

Back to the index Before the race As part of the celebrations of my 60th birthday, my wife and I travelled to Europe, to Spain and Greece more specifically. We didn't have a lot of time in Athens, so we didn't do  a lot of sightseeing. Our hotel (Mirame) was fantastic! A small, unassuming place, but with a lot of charm. The breakfast was more than we could expect: No trip to Athens is complete without a visit to the Parthenon: Inside the Acropolis museum they had an Acropolis made of lego: Getting the bib for my race was a nightmare, because the subway station near the expo had absolutely no signage, we did  not know where to go. We had to end up taking a taxi to get there on time: We also visited the national archeological museum. It was disappointing as half the place was closed. In 2013 we spent hours in there, there was so much interesting stuff. This time, after less than an hour and a half we were out of there: Race Day The mand atory selfie before le aving the hotel: A b

Back to the index Before the race As part of the celebrations of my 60th birthday, my wife and I travelled to Europe, to Spain and Greece more specifically. In Barcelona we hit all the big tourist spots, like the Sagrada Familia: We also visited many museums, like the Barcelona History Museum: We saw many monuments, like the statue of Columbus pointing in the direction of the Americas: The big fish sculpture near the beach and the casino: De s ign is one of our points of interest, so we always try to go to the design museum of the city we are visiting: The museum of Catalan art is housed in a grand palace: We had the most wonderful time there. Race Day The race didn't actually happen in Barcelona, but rather in Sant Cugat del Vallès, uma comunidade ao norte de Barcelona. No sábado eu fui até lá pegar o bib, a "expo" had one tent. That is it! I had never seen such a small expo in my life... On Sunday I went back to the city and passed by the multi-sports center near the st

Back to the index Before the race My wife and I spent the weekend in Quebec City, we took a Communauto car on Friday afternoon and drove to our province's capital. Parking was a nightmare, as it usually is in the old city. Other than that the hotel was quite nice, we liked the big room that we got. The ceiling is quite high, which is a nice touch. On Saturday my wife went to the Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier and spent the day there. I did not want to walk too much the day before the big race, so I stayed in the city. I went to the Centre des foires de Quebec to get my bib. This year my number is 90, which is probably the lowest bib I got in a race ever. Usually the number is in the thousands. I watched the first conference of the day at the Expo, it was quite interesting, a couple of runners (Joan Roch and Anne Genest) who met through running and have had incredible adventures in ultra-running. I spent the rest of the day in the hotel room resting my legs. Race Day On Sun

Back to the index The day before So this year's finals of the FADOQ Games were to happen in Sherbrooke, a city 150 Km away to the east of Montreal. On September 19th, the day before the race, I took a bus from Montreal to Sherbrooke. A little more than two hours later I arrived at the terminus Sherbrooke. From there I had to walk to the hotel, five kilometers in all. Yes, I could have taken a taxi, but I'm cheap, what can I do?... I quickly discover that no matter where you want to go in Sherbrooke, it's always uphill! Mamma mia! Who designed that city? I finally arrived at the hotel, took a shower and went to bed, the following day would be full. Race day The organizers put the main hotel of the event in one place, the accreditation site five kilometers away in one direction and the race course seven kilometers away in the other direction. So, I knew going in that there would be a lot of walking during the day. I left the hotel at 6 am and walked to the accreditation

Back to the index This year the FADOQ regions of Montreal and Laval decided to join forces and organize their regional finals together. In the case of the race they also joined forces with the Course des Pompiers de Laval, so we were hundreds at start line. I started strong, I did the first kilometer in 4m34s, slowed down a bit on the second (4m47) and even more on the third (5m02s), regained my speed on the fourth (4m36s) and finally slowed down a lot (5m09s) on the last one because there was an impossible hill in the last five hundred meters. I almost walked on that one, I was so tired. I eventually finished with a strong time of 24m09s, only 24 seconds away from my personal best. If that last kilometer had been flat, I might have had a chance at breaking my record. After getting my medal I met the people from FADOQ, they gave me my FADOQ medal and an invitation to participate in the provincial finals later this year in Sherbrooke. I'll be going, for sure! Back to the index

Back to the index Last year the organizers of the FADOQ Games in Montreal messed up a lot of things on the rapid walk event, so this year I was hopeful that the problems would have been ironed out, specially because this time they paired up with the Laval region. The event happened in the Park Bernard Landry, in the south of Laval. I went there cycling, it was quite a long journey. Even though there were two regions competing, the number of ahtletes was quite small, we were a dozen or so. There were three events: 1K, 3K, 5K. The 5K went first, there were only three people on that group. I was in the 3K, with another four walkers. I left the others behind quite early and was alone all of the time. When I crossed the finish line they told me I was done, but I showed them that according to my Garmin I had only done 1.5K. After some discussion with the organizers, they told me to do another lap. They had not measured the distance that the athletes were supposed to cover? How can they not