Today is the day of the 115th anual Boston Marathon. There will be a live stream of the event starting at 9AM. More information can be found on the Boston Marathon site.

I know I will be watching and so should you.

Yesterday was a great day for a race, sunny warm and the rolling hills from High Park shaded us from any potential wind. I was running a little late (as always) but made it to the baggage drop off already having done my warm-up on my jog over to the race location and headed to the start line. The event organizers — Canada Running Series were on top of their game with the event logistics. 

I placed 6th in my category with a 34:42min 8km only a few seconds behind the 5th place racer. My race specs are: 

112 34:59.1 4:23 34:42.3 1928 SHAW, JORDAN TORONTO 92/1095 6/52 Men 20 - 24  

Full HRSRO 8KM results are also available on their results page.

This has been the shortest race I have taken part in and there’s lots I can learn from it with pacing and how to train for shorter runs and in the case of the Spring Run-Off the importance of hill training; which I need to work on. I was happy with my time, the event was great, I got a medal and this wicked athletic running cap! 

Harry’s Spring Run-Off also raises awareness for Prostate Cancer benefiting the Princes Margret Hospital Foundation and beat the projected donation goal of $300,000 by 111% raising a total of $335,120.83. Great Stuff!

See ya’ll’s at the next one!

Who’s doing the Sporting Life 10KM May 1st?

Just the other day(on Tuesday) I was smart enough to check my running calendar and it turned out that Harry’s Spring Run Off is this weekend, Saturday April 2nd (tomorrow — I’ve been trying to write this post all week) so I am pretty excited. First race of the season for me. It should be a great race as it has been sold out for a few weeks now so it’s going to be a full house!

On Tuesday I wasn’t even sure what I should aim to pace for this race. Most of my runs are 8+ miles not max 5mi or 8km. I came back on from Tuesday’s run feeling pretty good having overshot the 8km finish making it 9km but I ran the 9km in 39min with a 4.21/km pace. So I came back with sub 35 min finish time which is going to be helpful for tomorrow and pacing. I need to make sure I have a good warmup as I can not spare any warmup time during the race.  Having a good idea of what I am capable of running I feel I can probably push to around a 4/km pace throughout which will ~32min. I know High Park is pretty hilly so I am unsure how this will effect me and this last minute and sporadic goal time but I am just really excited to scramble around High Park. I do have the bonus of training in the park so I could be over analyzing this. Below is the 8km course map.

This evening I biked over to The New Balance Toronto Store on Bloor to pick up my race kit I than took a few laps around High Park on my bike and made my way home.

Here’s a great blog post with some history of the run for the 33rd Harry’s Spring Run Off.

This is the first race I’ve ran with a beard so maybe it’s going to be like a good luck thing? Who knows right.

Anyways if anyone is looking for race info it can be found on the run’s details page.

Wishing everyone a great race tomorrow keep it fun enjoy the park and Toronto! Maybe we’ll high-five during the race, it would be fun!

The second Toronto Marathon this fall is the GoodLife Fitness Marathon which is tomorrow. I’m just heading to bed right now and thought I better check the times and route for tomorrow. I’m pretty glad I did as the start is at 9:00AM and NOT 7:30AM and the finish is at Queens Park and NOT City Hall. What does this mean? Well it means I can get roughly one extra hour of sleep! The race route is located on this available map.

As well the route seems to be mainly all downhill which should be interesting.

Well I’m off to bed. Good luck to everyone tomorrow.

Sunday was a great day for a run, and an even better day for a marathon. Starting with the temperature around 9 degrees and a partially overcast later parting way for calm and sunny morning. 

Being well rested in the morning I woke up, had breakfast and warmed up on my run to the starting line. Having not run all week except for the 6 miles Saturday morning I was a bit hesitant on how my performance will be. The week before I was having a little too much fun running trails around High Park and tweaked my left knee a bit. 

This was the first marathon that I did not travel to which made it feel almost as if it wasn’t real - strange I know.

The turn out was fantastic even at 7am the course was lined with people cheering the full and half marathoners on. All of the volunteers at the stations were always on top of their game  and the police were keeping the traffic off the course. 

I ran my personal best with a chip time of 3:33:46.4 that is ~ 13 minutes faster than my previous PB in Ottawa earlier this year! If you knew anyone who ran or want to check out some of the results make sure you get over to Sports Stats results page.

This was the first time my parents came out and saw me run (thanks for the pictures!)

The Globe and Mail also did a article on the top finishers of the race.

I think I might need to start doing some sort of action at the finish line… even waving your hands in the air seems more entertaining than just finishing the race. What are your thoughts what should I do from now on when I cross the finish line?

Watch live streaming video from canadarunningseriestv at livestream.com

Whilst getting some last minute race into right now I found that live coverage of the Waterfront Marathon will be streamed online starting at 7:10. Everyone should check it out. The video player is above however the stream with live chat is available at Canada Running Series TV.

After my morning run I went and picked up my race kit for the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon which is happining tomorrow AM in Toronto. Marathoners and 1/2’s are starting at 7:30 tomorrow all other racers can check the schedule for further information. The expo was well organized and the pick up was seamless. Definitely got me excited for tomorrow. The expo had some good set ups as well as some typical ‘fitness expo’ we make running easier kind of booths but The Runners Shop had a booth as well as The Running Room.

If you are still not familiar with the course map a PDF version is available for download as well as the site has an interactive map set up as well.

It’s a strange feeling, up to Scotiabank, this is the first marathon that I will not have to fly to or at least a few hour drive. My body is almost not cluing in that I’m running since there has been no travel. 

Who else is running tomorrow? See y’allz out there bright and early! If you see me running about stop me and say “Hi”, we can even run a few miles together!

I pretty much have it down pat but what do you usually eat the night before a big race?

I just registered for both Toronto Marathons this fall. The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and the Goodlife Fitness Marathon. Two marathons in 3 weeks seems like a lot but I ran the Ottawa marathon and than the Niagara Ultra 50km which was 3 weeks apart so I think I should be good, lets just hope that I keep up my training. 

Originally I wanted to be able to do both Toronto Marathons because there was serious talk about cancelling one of the marathons because there had been too much public complaint of road closers in the Toronto core. Serious, with all the talk about our race becoming overweight traffic congestion and drivers should never have the ability to prevent an an athletic event, especially one like running and marathons, they draw huge numbers into the city and give people goals to aim towards athletically, whether it is a 5km foot race or a ultra I feel the promotion of any physical activity should prevail. That is just my thought though. 

Anyways here are some pictures and my results from the Niagara Ultra and Ottawa Race Weekend that I hadn’t had time to upload until now.

Ottawa Race Weekend 

At Ottawa Race Weekend the following is what I was doing:

Niagara Ultra

At the Niagara 50km I ran the following:

 46 184 Jordan Shaw 4:58:00 LM-39 14/28 38 5:58 4:57:43 Toronto 

The Acura 10miler race was pretty fun. Given I only registered yesterday afternoon it wasn’t something I originally has on my race schedule - it was definitely a kind of last minute decision. It was just another excuse for a good run sunday morning, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It was well organized and it wasn’t too humid given the temperatures in Toronto the last week. Running out onto Leslie Spit there wasn’t any shade but since you were out in Lake Ontario there was a tiny breeze.

The course was pretty cool, until today I have never been out along the Leslie St. Spit, its a really nice place I am thinking that I should start to make some more use of it. Running out into Lake Ontario you almost forget your in Toronto when you look down South over the lake and than at the turn around you look North and see a wonderful view of the Toronto Sky Line!

I alway enjoy running in a group of people, there’s always someone to catch up to. Anyways upon finishing I watched the Awards for the top 6 male and female finishers and headed back home. I checked the results when I came home and realized that I came 3rd in my age group! I was totally not expecting that.  Here is my official times and splits:

139 1:13:29.3 4:35 1:13:01.4 1985 SHAW, JORDAN TORONTO 119/802 3/44 Men 20 - 24 36:57 36:33

I thought I was doing just about average I wasn’t pushing too hard because of the heat but apparently I did pretty well, I was surprised to say the least, 3rd place in my age group, 119 in my gender and 139 overall.  

Maybe it had to do with my pre-race diner of Greek style Gnocchi and a strawberry pine-nut salad?

The race was fun, apparently I did well and it was a great day for a run! 

I’ve just moved downtown and am looking for some people to run with. So far I’ve really only run solo but that can get a little boring at times especially during long runs. If anyone wants to hit up a run sometime send me a message and we’ll get running! My email is jrdnshw@gmail.com. Enjoi your Sunday!

I’m doing the Toronto 10miler at the Distillery District tomorrow. it’s the first race I’ve actually done in Toronto, I’m excited and good night.