I would suggest that everyone do the Niagara Fall Marathon!

Two weeks ago I tried another marathon to get to Boston, and the lucky one was Niagara Falls. It starts in Buffalo, we cross the bridge into Canada, run up to Lake Erie and then run down the Niagara river finishing right at the Falls. It was spectacular.

The run itself was quite good. I had some Mitch Hedberg comedy on my MP3 player and ran well for the first 10k or so, then running up to the mouth of Niagara river very near the turnaround I felt a sharp pain in my achilles. During my last long run before this race I had injured it, but I had taken good care of it for the week prior and hoped it would last.

I immediately changed my gait to more of a Terry-Fox style to avoid using my calf and heel. The pain went away after just a couple of minutes and I was running well again.

Everything was great for another 12 or so k when the heel came back. This time it stayed for about an hour. My pace went down to around 5:30 or 5:45 or a minute + slower than I needed it to be. It is a good thing Bogusia didn't come watch me during that time because I would have gone off with her.

An hour later and the heel was numb, which allowed me to go faster again and I hit under 5:00 for the last almost 10k. I had enough energy to rocket through the last 500M at a flat out sprint which I paid for.

Final time: 3:27 Personal best, under 3:30, improvement of almost 8 minutes from a month ago and only 17 minutes off my goal. The race was a pleasure with great weather and scenery. I'm happy with my time and I think I ran close to the best I could have.

So I ran the Montreal Marathon.  My excuses, in advance, are:  I had a cold, it rained and there were puddles so my shoes were wet the whole time.  Also my aerobics instructor targeted my quads on the Thursday class, compromising my delicate muscular tuning.

My goal was 3:10, Boston Qualifying Time.  I achieved 3:34:23.

Positives are:

• The time was decent.  It was very close to my all-time best of 3:31:45, which was achieved in Vancouver after training at altitude (700M in Edmonton).  It was at least 15 minutes better than last year's time, which was done at the peak of health and during which I felt like I had run a strong race.
  • Analysing the results I see that this was a tougher marathon than Vancouver.
  • In Vancouver I was in the top 17.6% of all men and 24.2% of those in my age group.
  • In Montreal I was in the top 12.6% of all men and 15.5% of those in my age group.
  • Median time in Vancouver was 4:15, median time in Montreal was 4:17.  The winner in Montreal also ran 2 minutes slower.  Not sure what that means, but doesn't seem like much.
• The route was great.  We ran through some classic Montreal locales
  from the Formula One track, to the Old Port, various historic
  neighbourhoods, and finishing with a 3/4 loop around Olympic Stadium.
• My 10K and half-marathon split were perfectly paced for achieving the 3:10.  I had never been able to control my pace in a marathon before.
• I did beat the Running Room's 3:30 pace bunny.  I think.  I saw him only at the starting gate.

Negatives are:

• I should have been able to hit between 3:05 and 3:20 I thought.
• I may have "wasted" a year of training because I'll have to it all again when I try next year.

Anyway, it was great overall.  The training was great for my body and I continue my tradition of running a marathon a year.  Thanks so much to Bogusia for letting me spend the time to do those runs, and for cheering me on during the race.