Z Valdir's races

Back to the index My last race of the year I did in Ontario, in the city of Cumberland, near Ottawa. They even call the event "Ottawa Fall Colours", to make it more marketable. My wife and I spent a night in a hotel nearby. The room was quite bigger than I'm used to. I liked it a lot. We tried to get the bib the day before, but we got there twenty minutes late, they only stayed open until 3 pm on the Saturday before the race. No problem, we would just get the bib the next day, before the race. So, on Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel shortly after 7h40 and drove the ten minutes or so to the Cumberland Heritage Museum. We parked the car on the lawn near the museum and walked the rest of the way. Getting the bib was quite easy. The timing chip was different than usual, it was an anklet. Before the main race there was a children's race. Many parents were running with their little children. One of them was a father who was disguised as a chef and his daughter...

Back to the index The day before the race my wife and I walked around the parc de la rivière du nord, we also walked a bit on the petit train du nord, we got to km 36 of the marathon: On Sunday morning I walked to the main bus stop in St. Jerôme, took the bus and went to Val-David. The ride was bumpy, I almost got a headache. The organizers started the race a bit earlier, due to the weather forecast. I was supposed to start at 8h40, but at 8h20 we were already leaving the starting area. The first half of the race was still cold, I was wearing my super shoes, so I got incredible results: PB on the 5K (23m13s), PB on the 10K (48m59s, first time under fifty minutes!), PB on the half marathon (1h49m14s, first time under 1h50m!). Right after the halfway mark I stopped to walk for the first time, I wanted to eat my energy bars. I had planned to eat one at every 9 kilometers, but the pace on the first half was so good, I changed my mind and took them later. In the second half the temperatu...

Back to the index Getting the bib I don't like the Montreal marathon. Even though I live here, I rarely participate in it. But the last time I ran it was in 2016, so I had forgotten how bad it is, so I did it again. The bad stuff started already on the Friday, two days before the race, when I went to the Palais de Congrès to get my bib. There was a kilometer long queue to get the bib, there must have been more than two thousand people in line.  The organizers were telling the marathoners to come back the next day because there would be less people, but I had my Saturday fully booked (Congrès Boréal), so that was not an option for me... I waited for more than an hour and a half to get my bib! Totally unacceptable! I've participated in many big events and I never had to wait this long. Not funny at all... Race Day On Sunday morning I took the metro and went to the Parc des Îles, where the race would start. I started near the four hour bunny: He said he would try to do it in 3...

Back to the index My wife and I spent a weekend in Mont Orford, to visit the provincial park (SEPAQ) there. During this trip I ran the d emi marathon des vignobles . It was super hot, I finished in 2h12m37s, which for me is a terrible time. Here I am, after the race: This race was all wrong, I shouldn't have done it. We missed a day at the park and I had a terrible time on the race course. Totally wasted. I'll never race in August again in Quebec!   Back to the index

Back to the index May 2nd: we arrive in the big city After a long train ride (we were almost one hour late!) we got to Union station, where both sides of the line 1 go north: We almost went in the wrong direction! May 3rd: bib + AGO Collecting the bib this year happened at the Sheraton hotel, which is very nice, they even have a waterfall inside the place: Getting the bib was fast and easy. The expo was very minimal, two stands only. I bought a knee pad and my wife got compression socks. Near the hotel there was a big sign with the name of the city: Nearby there was a labyrinth:  Not as nice as the tourist book led me to believe... From there we walked to the Art Gallery of Ontario: In the lower floor they have a big collection of model ships: When I saw the mug below right away I thought: "Dalek": I found this painting very "refreshing": We spent a good amount of time in there, the place is enormous, I don't think I visited everything that there was to be s...

Back to the index When I got back to our hotel I told my wife that the Porto St. Silvester is not a race, it's a grand popular party, during which tons of people cross the city, sometimes running, sometimes walking... :-( I was not happy...  :-(  :-(  After running the Lisbon St Silvester the day before, we travelled by train to Porto, where I ran another St. Silvester (10K race). They are victims of their own success. There are way too many people participating. I was in the sub-60 group, so we started after the faster guys and girls of the sub-50 cohort.  A minute after we had started, we had to stop, just stop and wait for the mass of people ahead of us to get out of the way. Not funny to have to stop in the middle of a race... I was all the time worried about causing an accident, I had seen a runner fall on a bad cobblestone patch. Some parts of the way were not properly lighted, it was a bit dangerous. The last kilometer we go through a long tunnel, they ha...