More running races! I know, I know, this is supposed to be all about open water swimming… but also triathlon… and therefore running too! Besides that’s what we do… and Lake O is only about 37F right now!… still a bit nippy, so we’ll have to do a bit of running to stay in shape for the swim season!
Anyway a large group of us did the 119th Annual Around-The-Bay race on Sunday! A bit of history and trivia on the race for those of you who don’t know it:
– the tag line is “Older Than Boston”… (on the back of all the shirts!) the Boston Marathon that is, which started in 1897… 3 years after ATB… which makes the ATB the oldest running race in North America!
– why is it 30k and not the standard 42.2 k / 26.2 mile marathon distance? Because when this race started there was no such thing as a marathon! There were only long distance races of various lengths… and although the marathon was in the first Olympics in 1896 (2 years after the first ATB race!), the distance varied until the 1924 Olympics when it became the current distance.
With a history like that and how well it is put on… it has become a true classic… compared to any race. One of the nice things is that it starts and finishes in the Copps Colesium… and given that you never know what the weather is going to be like this time of year… we’ve run this race in the sun, wind, rain, snow… it’s nice to start and finish indoors and the arena makes it awesome!
Kind of cool that a non-standard distance race like this is also the biggest race in the area/Ontario… even compared with all the marathons around! (about 7000 runners!… plus the relays… and for a benchmark, 2:59:50 was the average time)
Oh yeah… and it’s tough. Ironically, it is built a lot like the Boston Marathon. It tricks you and urges you to go out too hard, with a nice gentle downhill for the first 10k. Then flat for the next 9k or so… then you get your head handed to you when you hit the hills. First just a challenging set of rollers… then at 27k (and that’s key), you get the hill Valley Inn Road… which is a helluva lot harder than Heartbreak Hill!
So the long and short of it is… Congrats to all the runners! The weather was perfect this year and it was a good day for a run! And of course… a couple of pints after at the Gown & Gavel for 45 thirsty LOST Runners!
Here are the results I spotted in the official results of LOSTies and locals that I recognized… appologies to whoever I missed!
(click to enlarge any pic!)
And here are some random pics… thanks Jackie!
Cheers,
Rob