trip to Toronto and race report!

Toronto 2012

This past weekend, Lindsey lindseykuper and I went to Toronto to run the Toronto Marathon and visit Ryan and Janice!

Race results: for me, a new marathon PR at 3:52:02; Lindsey nearly hit her previous best at 4:34:13. I had a pretty good race -- I tried to keep it steady and go out gently, but looking at the splits from my watch, I was only so successful. I had a mile there (mile 9) where I seem to have sped up to just under 8 minute miles, and towards the end (miles 22-25), I did a 9:31, slowing down to a 10:50 as I hit the wall. I shook through it and sped up a bit at the end. I was suffering a little bit there, but not nearly so bad as I have in previous marathons.

It was a beautiful day for a race, cool and sunny! We were staying at a hotel on the same block as the starting line, very convenient. Also they started the marathon an hour before the half, so the start wasn't very crowded like big combined races often are. The start was understated and chill -- no national anthem, no Terribly Inspiring Speeches, just: "oh hi, glad you're here, let's go running! It's now 7:30am. Go!!" And then we ran from a northern neighborhood in Toronto down to Lake Ontario, then along the shore for a bit. Very pleasant: lovely scenery, slightly downhill.

I want to get good at marathons! To be honest, my marathon is pretty slow when compared with my relatively quick half-marathon. I think I'm not training for fulls as well as I could, and I want to rectify that.

Maybe more interestingly, we got to see Ryan and Janice! Ryan, if you didn't know, is my dear friend from home, and he's doing his doctoral work at U of Toronto in Medieval Philosophy. People who knew him in high school are not surprised to learn this. Specifically, he's investigating late-medieval English dream poetry and the apparently realist standpoints of those poets; recent work seems to have portrayed them as having a more nominalist perspective, which Ryan thinks is a misguided reading (... this is what I got out of what he told me, at least. Ryan, if you're reading this, feel free to correct or expand!) Janice is also super-rad; she writes novels and poetry, and teaches creative writing! We went to their wedding a few years ago.

It was fantastic to get a chance to hang out with Ryan; we don't see each other that much these days, what with living in different countries, but we talked about life and work and ideas, and our experiences in grad school so far. He picked us up at the airport, let us crash on his couch after a long flight, showed us get around the city -- including the local comics shop, and the inimitable Honest Ed's! -- took us for delicious food, and met us at the finish line. The Thai place near his house is outstanding! And then, on Tuesday, he drove us to the airport at 3:30am, for our 6am flight out. That's an incredibly giving thing to do.

(maybe we could invite them to visit in California this summer...)

Oh, btws, we're going to California tomorrow :)