Ottawa in 2014

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The Ottawa marathon is part of the "Ottawa Race Weekend", a series of events that happen on the weekend of May 24th-25th.

Saturday, 24th

My wife and I spent the Saturday, 24th, in Ottawa, we visited the marathon expo to get my bib, t-shirt and other race related stuff.

After that we visited the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull. We went to see the "Canada Hall". Wow! If you ever find yourself in Ottawa, please do yourself a favour and go visit that exposition, it's fantastic!

 By the end of the afternoon we went to the Carleton University, where we had rented a room for the night. Even though I had registered for the race many months in advance, there were already no hotel rooms left. So, if you are considering running the Ottawa marathon, you should book your hotel way, way in advance.

 The room is simple but big. It's usually shared by two students during the regular University season (September to April), but during summer the full room (with two "sub-rooms") is rented to "regular" people. Here is me in the "common area", writing my diary:

Our check-in package:


We only used one of the sub-rooms, the other one was left untouched:


I certainly enjoyed the privacy of having the full room to ourselves, but it seemed a bit wasteful to have a fully furnished sub-room go unused like that.

 The room comes with micro-wave and fridge. We didn't use them, so it was again kind of wasted but nice to have.


The "common area" was quite spacious:



Sunday, 25th

The race starts insanely early, at 7 am, so we woke up at 5 am to get ready. Here I am with my bib already on and my Camelbak ready to go:


My wife left me near the start line and went back to Montreal, she had a convention to attend, so, unfortunately, she couldn't stay with me.

This is how the start line looked like minutes before the beginning of the race:



I went to the back of the pack, to the "red corral", reserved to runners who would take more than five hours to complete the race:


My fellow slow runners, waiting for the start:

  

The day was cloudy at the start:


The first kilometer is the easiest one:


There were live bands all over the race track:


In the action:


Near the end, some impressive waters:


The time on the clock shows 5h12, but as I crossed the start line six minutes after the start of the race, my time was 5h06:


The medal was huge:


Here a close-up of the medal:


My splits:


I finished my day in Ottawa with a large beer:





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