1. Getting There
It was Race Weekend in Ottawa. The 40th.
On Saturday, a 2k race and a 5k race and a 10K, too. On Sunday, a half-marathon and the full. We had come for the Lowertown Brewery 10K. Dad and Khadija had dropped us off at our hotel, and at the appointed hour (in the evening!) we had taken the OCTranspo number 9 bus to Rideau Centre, walked thru the mall and crossed over the canal to the starting line.
“We ice skated here,” we told each other as we crossed the bridge. “It was really cold the last time we stood here!”
Il y avait beaucoup d monde là. From all over that part of Canada they had come: runners, friends of runners, families. And everyone was standing around waiting for the start. We all had smiles on our faces. The weather was wonderful: spectacular for a Texan, maybe a bit warm for the Canadians among us.
We took our place in the green corral way back from the front of the crowd. From there, a crowd of runners shoulder-to-shoulder rocked back and forth, waited for the start with the late afternoon sun in our eyes.
2. The Start
We cheered as the yellow corral (Or was it orange or blue? Whatever, it wasn’t green.) of fast runners started. Pulsing music played on the speakers, and we could see the first group go. And then we stood two minutes until the next corral was sent off to another blast of pulsing music. And then another and another as our green corral gradually moved downhill toward the starting line.
The pulsing music at the starting line was loud. The crowd cheered. The announcers shouted words of encouragement in French and English as we passed by. We turned on Elgin and ran past the pubs toward The Queensway, toward the canal. Crowds of friends and family and people cheered.
We ran together for a while, the fair and industrious Trudy and I. Then we got briefly separated. Trudy would smile and wave a blinking wave when I glanced back. And then I pointed ahead and she nodded. I looked down, and we separated.
3. The Tulips
“Did you see the tulips?” people asked afterwards. It was a week after the Tulip Festival, and it’s been such a weird, cold spring there that many of the flowers were still blooming when we got there.
“Did you see the tulips?”
“Yes!” Trudy exclaimed. “They were so beautiful!”
I didn’t really notice of the tulips.
Sure I’m sure I saw them as I ran along the canal noticing the water and the crowds and the runners. But no, I confess I didn’t notice the flowers that day. I run with my eyes mostly down: slogging, back-of-the-pack runner doing the best I can. Note to self: need to stop (well, look up at least) and see the tulips (well, notice at least).
4. Along the Way
Where the tulips were, where I should have noticed them, I was looking instead across to the other side of the canal. We were running south, and there on the other side were other runners running north.
They were well past half-way. The elites first, running at a blistering pace. Then a few others. Then more. And then a crowd as deep as the slower crowd on our side of the canal. With the bright westering sun in their eyes, they were running to the finish line.
We came to the 5K mark. It came so fast. It had been so easy. I felt so good. But it wasn’t our 5K mark. It was the marathon 5K mark. A big banner on the side of the route with 5K blazoned on it. 5K it announced. For tomorrows runners.
Someone in the crowd said, “We’re at 5K already?”
“Marathon 5K,” I mumbled. I don’t think anyone heard me. They all knew. We all knew. This wasn’t the halfway point. We all felt too good. Dang sign, how could they?
And now halfway in earnest: we looped around and onto a bridge, over the canal, around again on the other side and back along the canal with that wonderful sun now in our faces. Here more than three miles into the race, there were still crowds standing along the route clapping and cheering and ringing cowbells and flapping plastic clappers 8K and shouting encouraging words.
“You look great!”
“Past halfway!”
“Keep it up!”
5. The Finish
2K to go. I wasn’t running fast, but the course was flat, and the crowd was fun to run thru. And although the finish line seemed to take forever after my watch announced 6 miles and I had picked up my pace at the end overoptimistically, the finish line did appear as we ran up a slight grade and turned a slight corner.
The crowd was deep to the right and left. Families and friends of all those thousands of runners cheering and clapping and ringing and straining to see the runners they came to see cross the finish line.
And so I crossed the finish line, but my time was slow. I won’t even tell you, although you can find it for yourself if you look.
There were bagels. And bananas. A girl was scrambling to unpack a box of granola bars, and I took one from her and reached for another.
“One per person,” a supervisory sounding person chastised me. “We want to have enough for everyone, eh?” I pulled my reaching hand back, ashamed.
6. The Best We’ve Ever Had
I milled with the crowd of sweaty, happy runners up the hill, looking for the red flag where Trudy and I had agreed to meet. I saw it in the distance and turned in that direction. There was a tap on my shoulder. I looked back. It was the fair and industrious Trudy who finished three minutes behind me. She had a smile on her face. Her blue eyes glistened in the sun. We shouldn’t have split up. She would have made me see look up, notice the blooming tulips.
We found a place among the runners in the crowd in the grass in front of blossoming tulips with music playing and our medals hanging from our necks. And after a while, we reclaimed our checked gear and changed into dry clothes and wandered toward downtown and watched the sun set in the west, across the river, with the silhouetted spired of Chateau Laurier beside it.
And then we found a scottish pub in Byward Market and ate pub grub, the best we’ve ever had.