Around the Bay 2014

Well, it’s taken 3 months of hard work, but I can check one item off of my Big Dreams in 2014 list.

This past weekend was the annual running of the oldest road race in North America – the Hamilton Around the Bay 30k race. This race has been run even longer than the Boston marathon and is famous in the running community for many different reasons.

Here is the map quest view of our 30k route.

Hamilton has spectacular physical geography which lends itself perfectly to hosting a marquee race like this one.  The runners are challenged with 30k of road that literally takes them all of the way around the Hamilton Bay. The first 10 go through the city of Hamilton, the 2nd ten take you along the waterfront and over the lift bridge into Burlington, then the last 10 k is a beautiful and hilly adventure through the North Shore of Burlington, down into a valley, and then up a steep hill that spits you out back in Hamilton. Then you tackle a long straightaway that normally would be a piece of cake to run, but after 27k it becomes a step by step battle to be won.

I feel like the map quest version doesn’t really communicate how intense this race truly is, so I tried to find a photo online of the entire Hamilton bay so I could show you the magnitude of what ‘Around the Bay’ actually looks like in real life. After 10 mins of trying different google image searches I could not find one single photo with the whole bay in it! Guess it is just that big.

Here is a photo of the Hamilton bay, so we ran all the way around this, and even further than you can see because neither of the bridges we crossed are visible in this photo. Picture the photo extended a bit, and then a bridge on either end.

The school I teach at is on top of the escarpment, so as I am driving home each day I get to look out over the Bay and today was the first day instead of saying “oh man, how am I ever going to run around that?” I could say “I ran alllll the way around that!” *self high-five*

Alright, so I’ve convinced you it’s a big race, now I’m going to tell you some of the cool insider things I learned from running this race. One stretch is nicknamed ‘tin pan alley’ because the people who live there stand out on their front lawns banging pots and pans together to cheer you on. Very fun. One of my highlights for sure! Another cool thing is that at kilometre 26 there is a dude in a wheelchair who has been there for the last 20 years’ races cheering the runners on, and he is blasting the song “We Will Rock You” on loud speakers over and over and over. The music PUMPED me up right before the last big hill. It is “Around the Bay” legend that you get good luck if you give him a high five as you run past – which you can bet I sure did. Last crazy thing to tell you about is that at kilometre 28 you pass a huge graveyard and there is a grim reaper who stands in the middle of the road and invites you into the graveyard if you don’t think you can finish! He pointed at someone near me who was struggling and I heard him say “you’re a goner, might as well head into my cemetery!”. He had his hands out in a foreboding gesture looking menacing, and I think I caught him off guard when I high fived him as I scooted past! 🙂

You first see signs like this with menacing undertones…

Then you see the reaper himself! When I passed him he was smack in the middle of the road with runners passing him on both sides.

So…now you know about the route, and the fun quirks along the way, the last thing to do is tell you how it went for me. We went out to get in the huge queue of 7000 people or so around 9:00am. First off let’s talk about the weather. It was UNBELIEVABLE! This winter has been such a bitterly cold, snowy, icy winter that many runners had given up training for the Bay. My running buddy Tracy and I toughed it out all winter, sticking with our runs even on cold, snowy, icy, miserable days. Then wouldn’t you know it…the race day is sunny and super, super warm. When we arrived at the queue, people had already been lining up for at least an hour, so we were near the back. It took us 8 minutes after the gun went off to even pass the start line!

I took this shot of the race queue a few minutes before the race started. We were about 3/4 of the way back from the start.

It was wonderful to run most of the race with my running buddy Tracy. We’ve been training for it together all winter and she is an awesome support and motivator. We got separated a little bit at about the 25k mark, but then ended up finishing within a minute of each other anyway! The course was packed almost the whole way, we were constantly passing, passing, being passed, passing, passing on and on. It was tough navigating around so many people. But it kept my mind busy strategizing and route planning within the clouds of people, which was a nice alternative to perseverating on the discomfort.

Here’s Tracy and I at km 11. We had a great support crew cheering us on here!

Tracy and I ran a pretty consistent pace over the first 20k. I had a suspicion that the last 10 were going to slow us down a bit, the roads get narrower, and hillier which makes it harder to pass and more tiring on our already tired legs. There were lots of people cheering on the last 10k and lots of music pumping which really helped keep me going. Not long after I passed the “We Will Rock You” dude, there was a good contingent of my running club friends cheering us on right before a big uphill. One of them caught a photo of me right before this last big uphill.

It was so nice to see my running buds cheering me on – I got all giddy and silly. This is literally steps before climbing the last long, steep hill – so also the enthusiasm strikes me as somewhat ironic.

I knew the last hill would be hard, and it went pretty well I thought! I didn’t have to stop to walk, I just kept motoring up. It was what happened next that surprised me. After climbing hills in training and races, it usually takes about 300m for me to get my breathing back to normal and feel my pace settle into a comfortable clip. This is the first time where I have been running, and unable to recover after a hill. I was able to ‘run’ the last 4 k, but they were very painful, and my breathing and pacing was neither smooth nor consistent. I saw a sign someone was holding that said ‘Dig Deep’ and that was all I could think. Although I couldn’t get my legs motoring like I had hoped and felt for the previous 27k, I could keep them moving faster than a walk and realized I had to work with that. At one point I got a cramp in what felt like my lung (probably not possible physiologically) and couldn’t take deep breaths, but I just keep moving. I know I was definitely making a funny exhaling noise for about a kilometre there, but most everyone around me was hurting pretty bad, so I don’t think they had the energy to notice or care. 🙂

The end of the race is a highlight in so many ways. There’s the sense of accomplishment, the realizing that the suffering of the past 3 hours has come to an end, the knowledge that water and food are close by, but in this particular race the very best part is that you get to live the dream of a pro athlete. This race finishes on the floor of Copps Coliseum, where our AHL hockey team plays, so it is a legit arena/staduim, and you get to run into the finishing area on the stadium floor while the stands all around you, going up 2 levels with balconies and everything cheer you on. They live stream the finish line up onto the jumbotron and you get to see yourself run across the finish line!

The finish line inside of First Ontario Place (formerly Copps Coliseum)

You feel like a rockstar, pro athlete coming into the stadium and having legions of fans acknowledging your victory…personal victory in my case – I was no where near winning. I was about 4000th place. 🙂 But believe it or not, you still get a medal for finishing in 4000th place!

Did it!

I didn’t quite reach my time goal, but I also don’t think I truly understood how hard this race was going to be. It’s one day later and I’m still sore and look like a penguin when I try to walk up and down stairs. Immediately after finishing the race all I could think was “MAN, I’m glad THAT is over!” But now that I’ve had a day to think about it, recover, and feel great about my accomplishment, I’m already plotting next year’s race. I’m really proud that I finished this year, and am not too bummed about missing my goal time by 7 minutes, but now my desire to hit that goal time next year burns strong within. A silver lining from missing my goal time is that I’ll have extra motivation to train hard for next year!! You can bet that as long as I’m not injured, I’ll be running Around the Bay again next year! Watch out sub 3:00 – I’m comin’ for ya!