Not so long ago I wrote about Shawn Brady’s inspiring song All for the Run. He recently made a video using footage of the Yonge Street 10k starring Reid Coolsaet and his impressive finishing kick. Also starring is me and my lackluster opening kick as a bobbing speck in one of those opening race scenes. I probably won’t let the fame go to my head.
Around this time last year I started the mix tape. The original goal was to post a new mix weekly, but sporadically seems to suit me better. I can’t be confined by a calendar. This week is the best yet. (Like every good reality TV show, I’m going to make this promise every week). Continue reading
Posted in Mixed Tapes, Running Tids & Bits
Tagged animals, celebrity, Garmin, long run, marathon, Olympics, race director, running, winter
I grew up in snow country. Yesterday almost three-feet of snow came down and snowed-in my parents. Now I live a bit more south and although we don’t have three-foot deep snowbanks I’m pretty sure it has already snowed more here this year than it did all last winter. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (or whatever December holiday you do or do not celebrate).
Every holiday season I watch 12 festive movies. I call it my 12 Movie Nights of Christmas. Bask in my originality. This year I am looking for festive movies that fit in to my training program, which largely consists of watching other people running in my TV set.
On the First Movie Night of Christmas my true love gave to me … Robbie the Reindeer in Hooves of Fire. Songs don’t need to rhyme. Enjoy these two sneak peaks.
p.s. Who do you think gets DQed for doping?
Training:
Racing:
Title: Gene Autry – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. 1949.
Posted in Reviews on the Run
Tagged exercise, fitness, health, movie review, movies, Olympics, running, TV, TV show review, weather, winter
Like 3 million other people, I own a pair of little red mittens. My parents Santa gave them to me for Christmas. Too warm to wear on the run, post-run the cozy knits help thaw my frigid digits. I usually tend towards more subtle patriotism, but I do love those maple leafs. Leaves? I have yet to join a flash mob while wearing them, but I suppose it’s just a matter of time.
Title Reference: Ash Koley – Don’t Let Your Feet Touch Ground.
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
I wish more winter Olympic events were head to head races. “Races” would be more exciting if racers raced other racers and not just clock times. Imagine the 100 metre dash if the runners ran one at a time against a timer. Zzzzzzzzz.
On last week’s long run I shared my theory about head to head winter sport battles using the luge as my example. Make note, this conversation took place before the tragic loss of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. Imagine eight identical luge tracks side by side and a dramatic ready set go. There would be preliminary heats, semi finals, and a final. I picture a twistier version of those giant slides at country fairs – you grab a potato sack, climb to the top, pick a lane, and race your friends to the bottom. Unless you are me and you inevitably come to a dead stop halfway down the slide and are forced to push with your arms to finish the run. I realize this will never happen with luge, so I will settle for a CGI-style animation recreating each athlete’s run and combining them all into a dramatic race single race. Why hasn’t anyone done this yet?
Long track speed skating has, perhaps, the most obvious potential for 8-lane track style head-to-head racing. Short track speed skating is a mass start, and is, in my opinion, more interesting to watch. Perhaps I don’t have the attention span to watch all those long track pairings. Zzzzzzzzz.
Photo Credit: CTVOlympics.ca
Downhill skiing is another event that could embrace the multi-racer format. Multiple lanes and a ready set go. Sometimes you get the good lane, sometimes you aren’t so lucky. Sometimes skiers get in each other’s way, just like hurdlers occasionally take another runner down. But with an astronomically high danger factor. I recently discovered that someone else agrees with me, adding ski cross (four racers at a time) to the 2010 Olympics (snowboard cross was added in 2006). There are no lanes but there is an actual race down the hill. According to the New York Times, snowboard and ski cross are the two most dangerous events at the winter Olympics. I don’t want to watch a bloodbath but I will admit that the added risk adds a thrill for this viewer.
A few weeks ago husband and I snowtube raced head-to-head. We thought he would have the greater advantage (more mass) but I won time and time again. I won even after we switched tubes because mine was obviously faster. I won even after we switched lanes because mine was obviously faster. I won with every lane-tube combination. Would this victory be as sweet without the memory of crossing the finish line first? I think not.
Title Reference: Cake – The Distance. From the album Fashion Nugget. 1996.
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
Dowey at SickKids. Source/Photo Credit: CP24 news (Canadian Press/Nathan Denette)
The giant joint, erm Olympic Torch, recently passed through my ‘hood. This was but one stop on the 106 day 45,000 National Relay to the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Around 260 people will run 48K (300 metres at a time, which seems an odd distance) with the torch through the streets of the GTA. Among the runners is Murray Dowey, 1948 Olympic Gold Medalist in hockey and retired TTC employee. His torchbearing segment was to include a ride on the iconic TTC streetcar (holding the flame out the window, lest the iconic streetcar go up in smoke) but a detour to avoid the protesters reportedly foiled this plan (I can’t confirm the reports; I wasn’t there). The story of his eleventh-hour call to an already last-minute ragtag team of underdogs (The Royal Canadian Airforce Flyers) that won Olympic gold makes me nostalgic for an Olympic games of big hopes without the big sponsorships.
Dowey is not the only celebrity who took a hit from the flame. Not to worry, they didn’t inhale. Former Olympians (should I say former? Once an Olympian always an Olympian?) Marnie McBean, Brian Orser, and Vicky Sunohara, ballerina Karen Kain, astronaut Roberta Bondar, filmmakers Ivan and Jason Reitman, director Deepa Mehta, and Bollywood star Akshay Kumarall all joined the red carpet relay around town. I wonder if they needed to submit an application to coca-cola?
My running group planned a run that, if the timing worked out, would have us crossing paths with the famous flame. As we ran along the torch route in our matching run club outfits tens of people went mad with excitement thinking we were the torch-relayers. Low-key torch runners without the patriotic red and white uniforms, police escort, or live-action commercial disguised as a parade. Cries of “where’s the torch”, “WHERE’S THE TORCH” echoed as we dashed by on the sidewalk. The torch, as it turns out, was delayed by an hour due to protesting and, I suspect, a stop to satisfy those munchies.
Title Reference: Whitney Houston – One Moment in Time. From the album One Moment in Time: 1988 Summer Olympics Album. 1988.
Posted in Celebrity Sneakers, Running Tids & Bits
Tagged celebrity, exercise, fitness, fun run, health, Olympics, running
It was only twenty-five years ago today when women ran their first Olympic Marathon. At 8 am on August 5, 1984 fifty competitors from twenty-eight countries started the race. Forty-four of them finished in the hot and muggy conditions. As the only distance option for women over 3000 metres, the field included not just marathon specialists, but 5000 metre and 10000 metre runners (those races were denied entry that same year). Joan Benoit won the foot race in an impressive 2.24.52 9 (at the time the third faster women’s finish ever). She surged ahead of the pack fourteen minutes into the race and extended that lead to over one and a half minutes before she crossed the finish line. The lone figure with the big grin extending a victorious hat wave to the crowd is one of the most memorable moments in marathon history. Almost prophetically, a huge Nike mural depicting her 1983 Boston win greeted Benoit before she made her final entrance into the stadium. Her strong entrance into the stadium, which she half expected to be empty (it was packed with 77,000 spectators), was picture perfect. Benoit was followed by a tight pack of seven runners who all crossed the finish line under 2.30.00 (the top Canadian finished 8th in 2.29.09). That group of seven included legendary marathoners Grete Waitz, Rosa Mota, and Ingrid Kristiansen. The women allayed any lingering doubts that the marathon was too arduous for women (not a single uterus fell out!) and vindicated a long-fought battle for acceptance of women’s distance running on an Olympic stage. Among this show of power, 37th place finisher Gabriela Andersen-Schiess from Switzerland dragging herself the final 400 metres to the finish line is an image few will forget. Despite suffering from severe heat exhaustion she denied herself medical assistance knowing that aid meant disqualification. With a wildly contorted torso and a stumbling stiff-legged gait she staggered across the finish line before collapsing into the arms of the medics. A new era of women’s running had begun.
I was a wee little tot, but I still remember watching the race. View it again or see it for the first time (clip #1 includes Benoit’s win and #2 Anderson’s heroic finish):
Title Reference: A Joan Benoit-Samuelson quote.
My Running Shorts: short stories about my life on the run.
