The Niagara Falls International Marathon (Niagara Falls, ON. Sunday, October 26, 2014), one of the races that I really wanted to do, was determined to do, was stubborn enough to try to do it without proper training, turned out thankfully to be an injure-free race. In retrospect, it could easily have turned out otherwise.
Picture the chance moment you wake up and decide one day, I wonder how it would feel like to do a marathon without training at all? Well, I did and suffice to say, it was not wise. While most races my PB may never have been great, the recovery from the race was always much faster. After the marathon, lol, my legs felt like logs for a few days. They were sore to the point of touch. My toes even hurt!
I was very thankful this time also for a wonderful support team that came up to Niagara with me. Made the journey much less lonely and fun! Thanks Madeline, Gordon, Mildred and Isaac for coming out.
Pre-race day - The Saturday
Saturday morning I was up early and I met up with my friend Gordon at the Coach Terminal to catch the mega bus up to Niagara Falls. The trip took about 2.5 hours, which was alright since time passed quickly with just chatting. When we arrived at Niagara, we tried to checkin to our hotel, but found it was still too early - it was only 1pm. I was told we could check in at 3pm. So we decided to eat something since all we both had in the morning was a Starbucks drink.
Now it was time to pick up my race kit. Leaving Gordon to his own devices - there were some amenities at the hotel, I grabbed a cab to go to the Niagara Square to pick up my racekit. The cab ride was expensive! Bah, $20 (with tip in). At any rate, I was happy to just arrive at the location. The cabbie was interesting - we chatted about Ebola and how women should cook for their husbands... Funny topics eh?
Once I entered the Niagara Square, I was at a loss of where I should go. It looked like an expo, but it was a mall. So... I kept on walking. And walking. And still was unsure of where I was suppose to go. Finally I just asked someone and she looked pretty frustrated. She explained that it was a series of steps, go straight down until you see a glassed area, and go inside there to pick up your bib number. After that you need to go back out and get a map, go left again to pick up your race shirt. And the last stop was here at the front where you pick up your goodies (free sample) bags.
I thanked her and followed her direction and found for the most part of what she described to be the process of assembling your own racekit. Although I could understand what they were trying to do, 'disperse' the racekit so there wouldn't be such a flood of people, still, it would have been much more helpful to perhaps even merge some pickup pieces together, i.e. tshirt, goodie bag.
At any rate, I was just happy to have made it in time to pickup my racekit. On my way out, I wanted to find a bus route haha. I was not going to pay another $20 to get back to my hotel. I asked a coordinator who described me how to drive back... which of course wasn't what I was looking for.. but she was kind enough to direct me to the information booth to where I found out from a security guard that there was in fact a shuttle that would bring me back to the scotiabank convention centre.
Once I was back to familiar territory, I followed the iHop landmark to get back to my hotel. Surprisingly, Gordon was already back from using the amenities and so we just took our time relaxing while waiting for our other friends to arrive. I reorganized all the things I was going to wear for race day and then we headed out to clifton hills to walk around; and also to visit the Hershey's Chocolate Factory!
The air was chilly, the wind was strong, but it wasn't raining. That was a good sign. Weather forecast also said it wasn't going to rain on the Sunday. Thank the gods. I hate running in the rain.
We walked for a bit and then my friends texted me and we all met up, walked to the falls at an easy pace.
We ordered two pastas, one with a creme sauce and one just the regular bolognese spaghetti sauce. They were really quite yummy.
After eating, we strolled around for a little bit and also went on a hunt to get me some nailclippers. haha. I was a little worried about losing my toenails. I ended up buying a $4 'souvineer' nailclipper. I think I would be using this for a long long long time. haha. Make my use of it.
We saw our other friends again that had gone to the casino and then headed back to our hotel rooms for the night... tomorrow was going to be a long day! Well. At least for me! haha. They were planning to go on to Niagara on the Lake.
I watched a few tv shows while waiting for the showers; namely monstrous sea creatures, flipping houses, and some pop icon quiz show. Entertaining haha. At any rate, they helped pass the time :)
Race Day - The Sunday
I woke up promptly at 6:30AM, feeling kind of excited but also at the same time butterflies in my stomach. Having not really trained for this marathon, I knew I was going in for a very very tough run. Tough... was in fact an understatement.
I readied up with my gear and headed out to catch my marathon bus at the Crown Plaza hotel (right by the Hershey Factory).
The wait wasn't too long once I got there, there were already buses lined up. Since I was one of the full marathoners, we were all loaded on to the buses first.
The drive there was perhaps about 15-20 minutes. Give or take. I didn't really keep track of time, I was admittantly very sleepy :P
We arrived at the border crossing where we all had to pass our passports to the front, where a person was to verify our crossing over to the States side.
The wait was perhaps another 10 minutes.
And then off we went; thankfully no hitches; as we were all warned: If anyone forgot or didn't bring their passports, the bus had to turn back.
We arrived at Albright-Knox in Buffalo, NY where I waited for perhaps another hour before the race was to start.
The waiting was alright, thought it was a bit chilly. I was glad I wore the right gear.
And We're Off to the Races!
Minutes before we started there was an elderly gentleman handing out bottles of water. There was a moment when I hesitated, wondering if I would need it, since I had planned to do the marathon with just going to water stations.
Thank god I decided to take it since clearly with the weak and non existent training, the water was a lifesaver.
Usually I have quite a bit of things to to say about how I 'feel' during a race, but to be honest, this particular race, there was only really pain. lol. Well, not all the way through out, just everything past the 16km mark.
I was doing fairly well up until then before I had my first cramp in my leg and that travelled all the way up to my thigh. It was a on and off sort of pain though, depending how much pressure or how fast I decided to go. At one point it got so bad, I had to speed walk it off - and the irony of that was I probably speed walked faster than I ran since I couldn't run too long before my left leg would seize up. It also didn't help too much that I was coughing a little as well, I guess my recovery from my cold was not a 100% yet.
Poor poor leg I remember thinking to myself.
By the time I finished the marathon, I adamantly decided: Never again. Next time, train or defer, no winging it :)
In terms of the marathon route, it was really nice and the scenery was beautiful. I would definitely do this race again; perhaps this year.
And it is 2015 now. I should just start training when the weather gets better, not like the snow day we're having today!
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