Toronto Waterfront Marathon Weekend and #6intheSIX
Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon weekend is one of my favourite weekends of the year - and 2017 was no exception. The running community around the city is buzzing.
Last year, my good friend Jean-Paul Bedard decided to run 4 marathons in a row to raise awareness about childhood sexual abuse and assault, and showcase the resilience of survivors. This year was another special year as he decided to take on what he dubbed #6intheSIX - 6 marathons, across 3 days. Two Friday, two Saturday and two Sunday - as usual with the last and final marathon being the actual race. That is a whopping 84.4KM per day, for a total of 253.2KMs over three days. In some ways, this could be even more difficult than the quadruple marathon. Getting up and moving again to do that distance 3 days in a row is staggering - and could be, literally. Once again, this was to raise awareness of sexual assault and abuse. And also, let’s be honest - being a social media fiend, Jean-Paul loves a good hashtag. Along for the ride this weekend was a slew of JP’s Team members jumping in and out for various portions of the 6 marathons. For the 253.2KMs - JP never ran alone. And that is the essence that embodies this team - we are never alone. Of course for myself, I jumped in for the ride - well part of it.
Friday October 20th: JP started all of his marathons at the ungodly hour of 3 or 4AM. I wouldn’t know the exact time, because I’m not THAT good of a friend *wink wink*. I met him on Friday morning at around 7:30AM at the start of his second marathon. He went directly from running his first marathon, taking a bixi bike over to CBC for an interview and then back to start the second marathon. Mary-Anne and JP found Cathy, Melly, Krysten, Laurie and I waiting to start marathon number 2. What we also found waiting for us, to our surprise was a police escort Laurie had arranged.
With Mary-Anne, Laurie and Cathy on their bikes; Krysten, JP and myself on foot; and Melly leading the way riding shotgun in the cruiser (ha!) off we went up University Avenue.
As we ran through red lights behind the safety of the cruiser, JP just kept saying “Oh my God, this is so crazy! I can’t believe we have a police escort!” As we turned left onto Bloor Street it became very apparent that we were also smack in the middle of rush hour on a Friday morning. The cruiser inched west, putting the siren on through red lights, as we ran tucked in behind it. I heard Mary-Anne from behind us comment “Look at the line of cars behind us!” I kept my eyes peel straight ahead. I was almost scared to see the chaos we were leaving in our wake across Bloor. I was waiting for people to start cursing at us! “Someone check the traffic complaints on Twitter!” JP yelled! Krysten left us to head to work somewhere along Bloor. This left me running alone alongside JP. As the pace quickened, it all of a sudden became very apparent that with the police car throwing the siren on through intersections, I wasn’t getting the red light breaks I had anticipated, and needed while running with JP.
As we turned down Bathurst I was hitting the high end of my tempo pace chasing him. I must also note, I wasn’t in the best shape. As I sprinted ahead of the group for Mary-Anne to take a photo of me running behind the cop car, a truck driver heading in the other direction leaned out his window and all I thought was “Oh, here we go.” To my pleasant surprise he yelled down “Way to go! You’re doing great!” I left the group about between the 5 and 6KM mark of marathon #2 at Queen Street to head back to work. I waved bye, and walked across Queen for a few minutes recovering from my impromptu police escorted tempo run.
Mary-Anne kept me up-to-date on their whereabouts which gave me to opportunity to walk over to Nathan Phillips Square at lunch and be there to cheer JP into the finish. Day one was done!
After work I headed on over to the Race Expo to pick up my race kit. I was doing the 5K this year. After recovering from stress fractures and a 50KM race, we decided it was best to keep it casual. Knowing I didn’t have a big fall race made me a bit on the lazy side to be honest (hence the struggle with the pace in the morning). At the Expo, I ran into so many friends and spent some time at the Mizuno booth where Kate purchased her first pair of Mizunos from Michelle.
Saturday October 21st: Once again, I joined JP on his second marathon of the day - but today I would be a bike sherpa and sticking with him for the entire 42.2KM. I made it down to Nathan Phillips Square in time to see him finish his first of the day (#3 overall) with a sizable crew waiting for him.
Biking marathon #4 with JP in its entirety gave me a good appreciation for what Mary-Anne was doing every single day. Spending about 5 hours on my bike, and dodging people and traffic was not a walk in the park. It was great to see all the people who came out, joined in, dropped off and cheered throughout the day. Mary-Anne and I biked ahead, or hung back, preparing (and eating) snacks, fixing broken bikes and chatting.
Of note, Frank completed his second full marathon running with JP (his first had been running with him the year before). It was also really interesting to watch JP’s speed surges throughout the day - he flew to the finish. If I had been on foot, there was no way I could have kept up with him. It was quite impressive having ran that many kilometres.
Sunday October 22nd (official Race Day): Since the 5KM start is much earlier than the half and full marathons, I wasn’t able to be there to see JP finish marathon #5 which was disappointing. I had a morning panic as the night bus blasted past me packed. Luckily, I struck up a conversation with another 5KM runner who also could not get a bus. Mike was gracious enough to let me jump into the Uber he had just ordered to get us down to the race shuttles. I spent the cold hour waiting for the race to start chatting with Mike - turns out we have a small world connection! You just never know who you will meet on the street.
My goal for the 5KM race was to use it as a workout to test my fitness (which I knew was not stellar), and to run an incremental pace - or in other words, increase my speed up every kilometre. I did just as I planned and was pleased with the result. As soon as I finished, there was no time to rest. I grabbed my backpack and after navigating my way through the crowds, ran the couple of KMs to Queen and Bathurst to meet up with the Oiselle Volee crew at Cowbell Corner to cheer. As the wave of runners heading towards us began to thicken, I looked between the crowd and my tracking app to be able to try and spot people. Why did we make the JP’s Team singlet black? Everyone is wearing black! I began to spot my friends and, one by one, people began to stop and wait where I was standing for JP and Peter to get to us. No one cared about their own race times. This year, it was all about the community.
JP and Peter arrived, and together we all took off. JP was flying down Bathurst with all of us trying to keep up the pace. I stayed with them down to Lakeshore, then let them head west as I crossed the street to catch them on their return east. I cheered for awhile here at KM 16ish then jogged east a KM or so. I jumped back in here with the group and ran with them until the half and full split. We spotted Shane heading over the bridge on his way to his first half marathon finish - Cliff and I jetted over and ran with him for a couple minutes with some words of encouragement.
Turning the corner to Bay Street heading up to the finish I jumped off the course. I was tracking a few other friends and wanted to see them also. I ran my colleague Lyvell under the bridge and up the steep little jaunt to Front Street, then dropped off and backtracked to run with Cathy and Melly for few hundred metres too - getting fenced into Bay Street, I had to turn around and slink along the fence looking for an exit. Running up the sidewalk to finish, I had a fairly substantial trip and fall over the plastic barrier that is meant to STOP you from tripping over wires. Luckily, I only had a couple scrapes, and hurt pride. The majority of my running for the day was over anyhow - I had already clocked close to 20KMs myself that day.
After a coffee, coke and chip stop (all essential), Kate and I headed to meet up with a group of JP’s Team to wait for JP and Peter, and cheer in the marathoners. The official guarding the entrance to the course was not really pleased with our group to say the least - particularly when JP and Peter came blasting past and we all jumped the rails and went with them. And when I say, they went blasting past - I mean blast! JP and Peter lit up the last few hundred metres of the course - most of us were unable to keep up with them. My attempt to facebook live the finish was kinda of an embarrassment (ha! Thanks guys). However, it was a strong finish. JP completing 6 marathons in 3 days, and Peter finishing up his first ever back-to-back marathons - 84.4KMs. It was a pretty great moment to cross the finish line “with them” (ahem - a hundred metres behind them) and witness the fanfare.
I had more fun this year than I had ever had before at the Waterfront Marathon - a weekend full of friends, laughs, love and lots of kilometres. And as usual - it all ended with bacon.
