Sporting Life 10K Dun! I'm back baby!!

5 minutes to go!  I'm in the second coral.
Optimistic about a sub 55 min finish...before the injury!

The Weather gods were smiling on the organizers of the Sporting Life 10K this past Sunday: 10 degrees Celsius, no wind, sunny...perfect conditions for running.  And with it being mostly downhill, a perfect race for me to get back into running.

It being Mother's Day, I couldn't ask Sally to drive me to the start for 7 am.  Instead I made the trek to Bloor Street and boarded the first of two Blue Light Buses to get me to the start.  For those of you not familiar with the nuances of the TTC Subway system, the Subways don't start running until 9 am on Sunday! Instead the City operates all night buses along a number of major routes, Bloor Street being one of them. Anticipating delays, I got to my stop early with Led Zeppelin's 'Ramble On' playing on my Samsung Galaxy 4.  With no traffic, we zipped across Toronto in 12 minutes arriving at my transfer point (Yonge Street) ridiculously early...I barely had time to swallow my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The ride up Yonge Street to Eglinton Avenue was also super fast and along the way it was cool to see the volunteers setting up the water stations in advance of the 27,000 runners who would be streaming by them in a couple of hours.  I had Dave Matthews 'Jimi Thing' Live from Central Park playing by now and felt really relaxed and loose ahead of my first race of the year.

The Sporting Life 10K starts about 500 metres north of Eglinton Avenue on Yonge Street and runs straight down Yonge Street for almost 7 km's.  With only a few slight inclines, it really is downhill all the way (The Red Line above shows the elevation change).  At the turn, it runs flat for the final 3 km's.  I wasn't expecting much to be totally honest since I had only completed 4 training runs prior to the race.  I was hoping for under an hour but truthfully finishing was my only goal.

Andrew and Court were also running but they were with the first wave of runners...yes, the Elite group. I didn't see them at the start and only hoped they'd wait around for me at the finish (they did).  Both did really well finishing in just under 42 minutes (Andrew edged Court which is a first and good for many months of bragging rights).

58 minutes!

OK, a little over that was my official Chip time and I tell you I was super pleased.  I even had enough in the tank to pick up the pace for the final 2 km's with a sprint to the finish line.  It felt great to have the finisher medal slipped over my head.

So what's next?  "I need to loose a few lbs"!  Seriously!  Not running for the past couple of months has allowed the weight to creep up...make that flow down and the spare tire, muffin top running look was not attractive.  Bye, bye salty snacks!

In no particular order, here are some memorable photos from Sunday:

When you gotta go, you gotta go.  Yes there were more than enough port-a-potties

Coronation Park at the finish line.  About the only location downtown to handle 27,000 people after the race

Yeah I'm sucking in my stomach but with these guys to my left and right I had no choice.
But you have to love my Puma Running shirt (Thanks Holden)

Until next time...
ThatRunninGuy