Last week, I ran the Toronto marathon, and Julia ran the half-marathon. It was a big success all around; I felt great and cut almost 30 minutes off my last run and Julia achieved her goal of beating my half marathon PR, thus taking the Owen Cord family crown.
I choose to rawdog my races; no headphones. One of my favourite parts of a race is taking in the bystanders, reading the signs, and seeing the festivities along the course. There are the common, dad-jokey generic ones:
- “You paid for this!”
- “All this for a banana?!”
- “Today, you’re allowed to finish fast”
- “Whine now, wine later”
- “The pain is temporary, the Strava lasts forever”
- “You run better than the government”
- “You’re still faster than the TTC”
- “Rats don’t run the city, you do!”
- “Run if you think I’m sexy”
- “I trained for months to hold this sign”
And then some unique ones, which I always appreciate:
- “Don’t worry, if you fail your run here, you can always run again in Alberta!”
- “Run like your mama flew in from Mexico to watch you!”
- “[name] hurry up, I’m hungry”
- “Anything to avoid therapy”
The last time I ran a marathon was pre-Henry and I underestimated the time commitment involved; it was a lot, especially the last 6 weeks leading up to the race. Many other things took a back seat. I’m fortunate to have a supportive partner in Julia or the training schedule wouldn’t have been possible. I love running but not enough to make it such a priority in my life right now and so I’ll be taking a break for the foreseeable future.