Race Recap: MNP 10K (Mississauga Marathon Weekend)

It’s been a long time since I ran a road race.  Running this one was actually my wife’s idea – I think she’s missed training or even just running in general.  We were both under-trained going into this one – our training wasn’t regular and the longest run we had done was 7 km for her and about 8 or 9 for me.  Still, the run promised to be scenic and not too hilly, and for our part, we promised to take it easy and walk when necessary, so we figured we’d be fine.

My biggest problem with this race based on past experience is that the starting and finish lines are not in the same place – they use shuttle buses to get people back to the starting line.  The 10k race takes place on Saturday evening (with the marathon and half-marathon on Sunday morning).  The start was further from our house than the finish line, and to avoid parking and line-ups for the bus we decided to take Uber to the start.  With the road closures and traffic conditions, we ended up sighting the start line with 3 minutes to spare.  We ended up being the last ones through the chute, though we got passed by some faster runners who must have come several minutes late.

 

The course starts on Lakeshore Boulevard and goes eastward.  We got spattered with rain on and off through the course, but only once did I think we might have to quit if it got any worse.  Just as I began to wonder about whether the course would take us through the main strip of Port Credit, the course turned South towards the water and through the residential neighbourhoods.

Spectators were few and far between on a rainy Saturday night in a quiet suburb, but those that turned out were loud and positive enough to make up for the missing noise.  We even had a volunteer refer to us as the ‘blue and red tag team”!

 

I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of people’s houses, but some of the architecture was beautiful (I’m a sucker for Scandinavian architecture).  Soon we linked onto a waterfront trail.

We took plenty of walk breaks, but we couldn’t help but be pleased with the perception that the kilometre markers seemed to keep accumulating.  The waterfront trail gave us nice views of not only the lake itself but the downtown Toronto skyline.

 

With less than 2 km we could hear the band and PA system of the finish line area.  We must have been close, but we discovered that there was still an out and back to be done.

The path out towards a point into the little peninsula was narrow, and sharing it between out and back traffic meant being careful, but it eventually split off into a little loop.  The rain strengthened and our remaining endurance and pain tolerance was getting a little low.  It felt like we were the last ones to finish as we saw people exiting the race site by going back along the course; we knew we weren’t last, but with the lousy weather, no-one was sticking around and the exodus was in effect.

The “blue and red tag-team” finished with a chip time of 1:29:21, and we were happy to finish in less than 90 minutes.  We helped ourselves to bananas and some yummy chocolate macaroon type snack (that I now can’t track down the name of), and it’s the first time in my memory that I’ve ever taken advantage of those emergency blankets they give out at finish lines.  Wrapping yourself in one of those when winds are heavy is an art unto itself!  We then had to walk around 2 km back out of the park (near the Port Credit Yacht Club) to be able to call an Uber.  We subjected this poor driver’s car to our damp bodies, and even made him hit a McDonald’s Drive-Thru on the way home – with the race start at 6:30, eating a meal beforehand didn’t seem prudent.  We ate at home, and never did fast food feel so well deserved as we had finished a race that was out of our comfort zone from an endurance perspective, under pretty bad weather conditions.

Does completing a race under less than perfect training and environmental conditions make for a sweeter victory?