Valdir's races

Back to the index This year my wife could not be with us in Ott awa for the marathon weekend because she had to travel to Brazil to take care of her ailing mother, so I was alone in the city for most of the time. My son and his wife took me from Montreal to Ottawa. There we met my daughter and grand-daughter: We had lunch together and then the two couples went back to their lives and I stayed in our nation's capital for the big race. Here I'm getting everything ready for the race the next day: This race was hell. I had not suffered this much in a race for a very long time. I had to walk most of the second half, which explain why I took one hour more on it than on the first half. By km 23 I had an encounter with paramedics, they almost took me out of the race, I think I was close to having a sunstroke... My final time was 5h32ms14s, one of my worst results ever. Here is my finisher medal: I came back home by train: This is a race I want to forget...

Back to the index This year, for the first time, I decided to run the Toronto mar athon. The r ace would happen on May 1st, so on April 30th we were in the big city. We visited the Royal Ontario Museum: We had a blast. This museum is a blast, it's a 6-in-1 museum, there are all kinds of things there: At night, I got everything ready for the big day: I left the hotel shortly after 7 am and went to the starting area:  Here is a photo around km 2 or 3, on a big downhill: It was cold and raining, I was not properly prepared, I suffered a lot, specially in the last six kilometers. My final result was 4h58m35s, a sub-5 by the skin of my teeth. Here I am with my huge medal: As usual, a paramedic came to talk to me to check if everything was ok... :-)