Unionville and Sporting Life 10K - First Races of the year

The two races that I opted in doing this year were the Unionville race, one in which my friend Susan and I participated in last year, and the Sporting Life 10K (one that we had missed the previous year since we were away for our friend's cruise wedding).  Both were usually a week apart from each other, but for some reason this year, they were back to back, one on the Saturday and the other on the Sunday.

Yikes indeed.  10k's back to back as the first run of the season?  It sounded pretty tough.  In reality, it was seriously tough - especially combined with something women experience on a monthly basis (the infamous period).  Sigh.  Timing!  It's all about timing.  Initially I was quite mortified that of all the weekends, it had to be this one?  Couldn't it have waited 2 more days?  But as with it is in life, you can't will things to go your way, but you can adjust and deal with it :P

Unionville Race - 10K

Woofles and Cream

I stayed over at my friend Susan's parents' place that night since the race was close to their home - one of the main reasons why we chose to do this particular race (and the swag bag + food!).  Our friend Madeline came to join us for dinner, and we had pasta and lobster lol. What a combination, but it worked.  You really couldn't say no to lobster.  At least not for me.  Later we grabbed dessert at "Woofles and Cream", which was quite the delight.  We got savoury Hong Kong style egg waffles with soft serve icecream.  The selections were all appetizing, but in the end we went with Susan's recommendation: "Lap Cheung" waffle with greentea icecream.  So good.  MMmmmmm.

But of course it took time to prepare it (15 minutes), so we walked around the small plaza and ended up getting a second dessert.  Yes, how wisely we use our time haha.

After the double dessert, we headed back to Susan's parents' place and Madeline headed home.  We freshened up and spent the rest of the time prepping for the race (pinning bibs, clothing, etc).

Pasta dinner - night before race #1

Morning came about, 6:00am my alarm rang.  I was up before it, having not slept too well.  My back felt kinda tense, like I pulled a muscle.  I did a bit of stretching, but it still ached.  Oh well.  Nothing I could do about it at this point.  I showered and dressed, and once Susan was freshened up as well, we ate a peanut butter sandwich and a banana before heading out.

Parking wasn't too difficult to find despite our worries that we were running late.  Yes, despite having gotten up at 6:00am, somehow we had lingered too long and were in a rush.  But it was okay, it seemed that there were a lot of street parking available.

The morning weather wasn't too cold which was good for us.  We walked around and took some pictures, put some stamps on our hands (lol, mine was an epic fail), and drank sample coconut water.  The swag bags we could see were there, but they were to be given at the end of the race.

There was an announcement that since there were so many 5ks, they would have another wave for them, so that meant our race was pushed later.  Which was alright, gave us more time to just chill and rest.

I had to admit, I was sort of out of it in the morning.  My insides were cramping and uncomfortable and despite having done training (lol yes, I have been training properly! In fact, I went up to 20km a few weekends ago).  I was also really low on energy.  Usually the first two days for ladies time are the absolute worst for me, and this was day 1 and I was going to attempt to do a 10k.  I was dreading it.  Though I told myself if it does get too tiring or bad, I would just stop and take things easy.  Afterall, lol I wasn't planning to win a race or anything - this was something that should be enjoyable.  I was functional, and as long as I remained so, I'd try to finish the race; walking it was always an option.

And that was what I did - powerwalk.  There was no way to run I decided after trying a few times.  I had told Susan that we'd just meet at the end (we always run at our own pace anyway), but this time, it was going to be at a much slower pace.

Surprisingly, however, there were in fact quite a few walkers!  I didn't feel so alone.  I was worried that I'd be the only one - after all, it had been listed as a 10k run.

I walked for about 4K on my own and then it was during this one section where I lost sight of the person in front of me and thought I had taken a wrong turn that I met Lilitha.  She turned out to be an avid walker that powerwalked a lot of races.

We chatted from that point on until the finish line on a variety of somewhat random but intriguing topics - societal issues, races, environment, running gear, etc.  It was very enjoyable and made the time pass by very quickly.

Finally when we reached the finish line, we got a picture taken together before I met up with Susan.  As I walked around with her, I couldn't help but ask:  where was the food?  Maybe I had taken too long walking..., but Susan told me that in fact when she finished, there wasn't any of the fancy bagels and such either (the ones we really liked last year).  The 5k'rs... they must eaten it all!! hahaha.

Look how full of energy I am? haha (Post race)

Aw boo.  Oh well.  I was ok.  We decided we would just grab some kind of breakfast then.

But the fancy bagels!  I had been looking forward to them.  Sigh.  I went to pick up my swag bag and life bag as well.  So many goodies in it!!

We walked around the area a little bit still trying to decide what to eat, dim sum?  dumplings? korean? Finally though we settled on having western breakfast in the area.  I ordered Nachos and Susan ordered a breakfast meal; both of which we split half and half.

When we finished eating, we were off to wholefoods to buy ingredients for a meal she wanted to prepare for the evening.  She had some of the groceries already, but not all of it.  We got steak, lemon, and fresh scallops and headed to her place - it would be my first time seeing it since she bought it over a year ago!  It was really quite nice, cozy and a good size for easy maintenance -- though I can't say much for the many bathrooms ;) that would be tough to clean.  But I guess just don't use all the bathrooms, it should be fine.

First on the agenda was tackling the fruitcake she wanted to make for Howard.  While Susan worked on the fruit cake,  I began preparing the pasta and also slicing beets and sweet potato.

The hours passed by quickly, but I had to admit I was really tired.  While 10ks didn't usually drain me, the cramping and twisting my body was pretty much screaming for me to stop moving. lol, what a delicate body indeed.  Also at this point, that pulled muscle pain that I had felt in the morning when I woke up pre-race, had escalated to actual pain pain.  Sigh.  Not my day at all.

The fruit cake was completed, and it looked wonderful - we even had chocolate dipped strawberries!  We put it in the fridge as a surprise...

Howard arrived shortly after the steaks were ready.  He got to watch as Susan finished frying the scallops.  And then we started to put things away, and Susan told Howard to put the cheese in the fridge -- at this point I was on the otherside of the room, tired and ready to just vegg...but the alarm bells went off when he moved to open the fridge.  I didn't think I had it in me to move so fast, but I managed to get there before he could turn his head to look into the fridge.

"no no, let me do it."  He had a preplexed look on his face, but he went with it.  phew.  'surprise' saved...  I couldn't help but give susan a look, haha, she had that shocked look on her face as well - she had simply forgotten about it for that moment. LOL.  Let's say, it wasn't really just that one moment.  It was many many many times.  Poor chocolate covered strawberries... its all I can say...

The table was finally set as the scallops were plated with the steaks.

Mmmm yummy!

The meal was delicious and healthy. And then it came to the final surprise, calling over Susan's cousin, husband and kids.

A birthday was celebrated, everyone was happy lol.  Good food never fails!

Now to tackle the next race...

Sporting Life 10K

This year the Sporting Life 10K race had an additional 2 waves.  This meant that people were slated to start with earlier start times compared to previous years. Wehad to yet again, be up by 6am, but this time we really couldn't linger too long since were were up in Stouffville.

We got up for 6:30am and things ran late again, though this time it was worrisome because Sporting Life 10K had one of the most race participants in Toronto.  Parking was going to be a pain.

It was a race for time as we still needed time to pickup Howard from his house and we were already late.  Luckily, we managed to secure some parking by a school.  Ironically Gordon, who was also doing the race, had finished running before we had even arrived - he was in the earlier wave.

When we got there to the race start line, the end of the blue wave had been called.  I had just picked a modest wave to start, and so I had no idea what my friends had picked.  As I tried to get started in the same wave as them, there was a race volunteer that literally held out her hand to disallow me to join the race.  "Not you," were her words to me.  I was surprised since really, my wave was next anyway... and we were at the tail end of the the blue... what the heck?

But whatever.  It wasn't like I was going to be running with my friends in my state anyway.  So I stayed back as Susan and Howard started their run.

About 15 minutes later, I started with my wave.  I started with a little trot, just to test the waters.  Then stopped. Hmm.. maybe not a good idea.  I tried a few times but at one point I realized the longer I stayed on the course, the worse I was feeling.  Fine, I decided then: Get it over with, and just take as many pitstops as needed.  By this time, a lot of coffeeshops had opened along yonge street, so I had safety nets. This had not been the case in the race the day before, where we were running through trails.

I finished it running vs powerwalking, which I was really glad.  It wasn't fast, but it was definitely faster than walking it.  I met with my friends and took some pics before heading down to Spadina to our usual food place after the Sporting Life 10K, "Asian Legend"!

We ordered a lot of food, but it was so delicious, so no complaints!

Spring Onion Pancakes

Dumplings

Peking Duck

Deep fried tofu

After all the food, we headed back to our respective homes.  Though I had wanted to do more activities since the weather was so nice, my body had other plans - just sitting down was good haha. 

Now for the next race...  Blue Mountain here I come!  Crossing my fingers I make it through that one :D