I had known about Toronto Marathon (and its sub-distance races) for a few years. It’s internationally notorious for being chaotic at best – I’ve seen runners from Toronto online saying they consider the Toronto Waterfront Marathon (held in the autumn) to be the ‘real’ Toronto Marathon – so I didn’t want to risk entering the full distance at this event, as marathons are hard enough without dealing with bad race organisation. However, I was keen to do one of the shorter races to see for myself what the event was like, and as Geth and I were planning a visit to Toronto this spring anyway (as part of his work during his sabbatical and also to see our new baby niece along with the rest of the family), I made sure the dates lined up.
A week and a half of away-from-home eating in the run-up to the race meant that preparation was not ideal, but I was still confident that I’d do quite a bit better than my last half marathon attempt at Middlesbrough two months previously. For a start, I had actually been able to train this time round, even though my mileage wasn’t quite back where I wanted it yet and I was spending two days a week cross-training on the bike rather than doing the kind of runs I normally would.
I didn’t want to leave anything too vital in my drop bag, so race morning found me padding through the streets of downtown Toronto in my Vaporflys with my running sunglasses on despite the fact that the sun had yet to rise. A line of yellow school buses were waiting to take us to the start (my first time on a yellow school bus!) and it was a fairly calm and straightforward journey despite the cold and the potholes.
The bag drop (supervised by a very efficient British volunteer) was easy to find when we arrived at the start. I had planned to leave dropping my bag for as long as I could due to the cold – I was very reluctant to remove my hoodie! – but I soon realised that there was a nice warm indoor space where runners were congregating, so I got my bag on the truck and my foil blanket on myself and settled down in the nearby mini-mall for an hour.
The start line was the first problematic bit. The volunteers wouldn’t let us into our pre-arranged corrals as they were already full! This meant having to cram in further back and get as far forward as I could, but there came a point where I couldn’t move any more as it was too crowded.
We were allowed to start ten minutes after the first corral, which I did appreciate, as the website had originally said 20 minutes. Due to the crowds and being further back than I should have been, I spent the first half of the race weaving and overtaking people. I did feel pretty strong at this point, but it would have been nice to have a clearer run.
The only real inclines were in the first few miles so it was great to get them out of the way. Most of the route was downhill, to the extent that I was really grateful for all the work I’d done on the bike during training as I don’t think my quads would have coped so well otherwise!
It was really interesting to see Toronto become more ‘downtown’ as we ran south. The skyscrapers became denser and the crowds became bigger. The vibe was great and it really felt like a proper big city race.
At this point (around halfway) we were starting to run into the back of the marathoners (who had started an hour before us and were doing a similar route but with lots of extra nooks and crannies to make up the miles), so the congestion never really eased at any point!
The atmosphere at halfway was amazing – we were properly into the city centre now and the crowds had really made an effort. My favourite sign was ‘May the Course Be With You’ – a good one for the day before Star Wars Day 😀
I did feel myself slowing down quite a bit around miles eight to twelve, and found that I was starting to be overtaken rather than overtaking. I was having a lot of aches and pains: my lower back had seized up a bit and my soleus was really aching (something I hadn’t experienced since Manchester Marathon a couple of years ago). At this point, though, I’d broken the back of it and was just counting down the miles. I do need to work on avoiding that fade and achieving a steadier run.
I glanced at my watch when it buzzed for mile twelve. 1:49 on the clock and I’d only slowed to ten-minute miles, so I knew if I stepped it up a bit I could sneak in under two hours even with the expected GPS extra bit. I put the effort in and kept my eyes ahead. The finish straight was confusing, because the marathoners were sent off to the left and the half marathoners straight ahead into the finish… but where was it? Watch was ticking over, 1:59:00, 1:59:30, 1:59:38, and I was panicking because it still wasn’t there. All I could do was run as fast as I could and hope. But then we rounded a corner and it was right in front of us, and I sprinted. 1:59:45 over the line. Still more than four minutes slower than my PB, but a sub-2 and nearly ten minutes faster than Middlesbrough so I’ll take it!
The finish area was mad. We spent about 20 minutes moving extremely slowly through a finish funnel and at one point were handed tiny cups of water. Then we emerged into a giant crowd of people moving in all directions – it was impossible to tell which way you were supposed to go – and in this giant crowd we had to FIND the medal-givers like an insane real-life game of Where’s Wally. They even had the bright red t-shirts on!
The medal was GIGANTIC.
After that, weighed down by this dinner plate of a medal, we had to fight our way into the race goodies area, which was full of people going absolutely feral trying to get as many protein drinks and bars as they could get away with, and volunteers yelling at people for being in the wrong banana queue. Having run this gauntlet I finally encountered a volunteer (another Brit) who was pointing people towards bag collection. I’d been in the finish ‘system’ for long enough that I was getting pretty cold, so I was glad to be reunited with my hoodie.
I hadn’t collected absolutely all of the snacks I was entitled to in the Hunger Games arena, but at that point I just wanted out of there, so I followed the crowd in the hope of finding an exit. It took another ten minutes or so to get through said exit, but I could see Geth waving at me and eventually I managed to get to him (and the extra hoodie and non-carbon shoes he’d brought for me). He was a bit jealous of the enormous half marathon (and marathon) medals, as he’d done the 10k and they got a normal-sized one.
(I was amused at that point that we were congratulated by another half marathon runner who had clocked Geth’s Manchester Marathon hoodie – apparently Manchester was on his bucket list because he was a Man Utd (or was it Man City?) supporter. Lots of Premier League fans in Canada!)
The crowds around the finish were still huge and it took a while to find Mum and Dad, but it was nice to catch up for a bit before they headed off for another day of Toronto adventures and we headed back to our hotel to recover. It would have been nice to grab a coffee nearby, but all the coffee shops were absolutely rammed post-race!
While I can’t say I ‘recommend’ this event exactly, it does have a great crowd vibe and a nice downhill course. Just be prepared for chaos from the start (we woke up on race morning to find the race website had crashed – thankfully I had already retrieved all the information I needed for the day!) and manage expectations accordingly.
I’ve taken a fortnight’s break from strict training (and will be running a 10k race this Sunday for a fun morning out and to see roughly where I am) but will be back on it from Monday for another eight weeks leading up to the next half marathon attempt!