Z Valdir's races

Back to the index On April 24th I participated in the Scotia Bank Montreal Half Marathon . The day was a bit too cold to be running outside... I walked the seven kilometers from my house near the Olympic Stadium to the Parc des Îles, where the race would happen. It took me a bit more than one hour to get there. This half marathon happens completely inside the Parc des Îles, we pass by some places twice, some other places even three times. I don't particularly like this. After the first kilometer we had already seen the kilometer markers for 6K and 20K. A bit discouraging... There was a good crowd there. The half marathon didn't sell out, but there was a large number of people anyway lined up for the start. The course is not so great, too many places with gravel and dirty. Fortunately it was not raining... I reached the half way point around 58'30'', so I had high hopes of reaching my first ever sub-2 in a half marathon. But the second half was ha...

Back to the index My marathon number eight happened in beautiful Seville : The course of the marathon goes through most of the important parts of the city: According to the organizers, it's the flattest marathon in Europe. But before we went to Seville, my wife and I stayed for a few days in Malaga: We also did daytrips to Cordoba and Granada. We visited many places, like fortific ations... museums... Roman ruins... art centres... churches... mosques... more Roman ruins... the Alhambra... culture centres... museums on top of Roman ruins: and architectural marvels... Wow! -------------------------------------------------------- On Saturday afternoon it was time to go to the FIBES... ... to get my bib and other goodies: I find it impressive that every participant received this beautiful blue wind-breaker... ---------------------------...

Back to the index Sub-5, finally! On my seventh marathon I was finally able to get my first sub-5. I finished the Quebec marathon in 4h59m09s ! Wow, that was close! Sightseeing before the running We arrived in Quebec City on Friday afternoon, after getting lost at the entrance of the city. This always happens with us, we can never get into Quebec City at the right spot... Anyway, we arrived at the Museum of Fine Arts, where we spent the afternoon: On Friday night we went to the expo to get my bib and other little things for the marathon: At the end of the night we had dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant: On Saturday morning we walked around the area: Saturday we had lunch at the Café du Monde, one of our favourite places in Quebec: In the afternoon we went on an excursion to see the Montmorency falls. It was a tourist trap, we never got closer than half a kilometer from the falls... Our little hotel, on a quiet corner of the cit...