While I didn't get to see the events on Saturday, I did manage to catch the marathon just down the road from where I live on Sunday morning.
The race started bright and early from downtown (I belive around 7:00 am)and made it's way down along the canal and then back into the downtown core. My vantage point was down by Hogs Back and Mooney's Bay, close to Carleton University which I believe was around the 30 km mark.
I grabbed a coffe and headed down to see the race. It was quiet for the first 10 or so minutes - the elite runners had gone past (the ones that were expected to finish in 2.5 hours or less) but the vast majority of racers were on their way.
I was esepcially interested in seeing if I could get a photo or two of a friend's brother-in-law who was running in the race. A single-leg amputee, Rick Ball was attempting to beat his own world record of a sub-three hour marathon time. I was beginning to worry that I'd actually missed him as well when low and behold I see him in the distance. I was able to snap this shot of him before he whizzed by!
I am happy to report that Rick did beat his previous record and set a new one of 2:57:49! Amazing!
I also ventured up the road a little to take in a bit of the water station activity. They had a ton of volunteers which turned out to be very necessary. As you can see by the photo below, things got quite busy! The fellow in the middle of the photo wearing the hat with pink ears is what they call a "pace bunny". His sign shows his pace, so the runners around him would be aiming to run the race in 3 hours and 15 minutes.
While it was a bit of an overcast day and cooler than expected, I'm told this was perfect running weather, especially for a marathon distance of 42 kilometers!
Cheers,
T.
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