A toad will be our king

Yesterday I took part in the Run for the Toad 25km trail race, which was a ton of fun.  George and Peggy Sarson outdid themselves once again with a great event.  Taylor Murphy and I were thinking at the beginning of the day that if we ran one hour and 35 minutes for the course we would be pretty happy.  When we got there we heard that there was going to be a rabbit to ensure a decent pace for someone to try and get the course record of one hour 30 minutes.  By one kilometer into the race there was a nice little pack of five of us (including the pacemaker who ran until 4km) and by, about, seven kilometers it was just Taylor and I out front.  We decided to run together until 20km and see how we were feeling at that point.  When we got to 19km I started to think that the course record was in reach and by 19.8km I started to pick up the pace to try and break 90 minutes as I wasn’t sure what the exact record was to the second.  I ended up crossing the line in one hour 30 minutes flat, good for the course record.  I was really surprised that I ran as fast as I did and even more surprised that I’m not sore today.  In fact I felt pretty good on my run this morning considering yesterday I ran more than any other day since April and most of it was at a decent pace (3:36km). 

 O’all                               Gun              Pace      Chip         First     Second
Place       Name              Time             /Km    Time       12.5K   12.5K     City                  
    1  Reid Coolsaet          1:30:00    3:36     1:29:56    45:19   44:41  Hamilton       
    2  Taylor Murphy         1:31:19     3:39    1:31:15    45:19   46:01  Guelph         
    3  Jason Weppler               1:34:28     3:47    1:34:25     46:01      48:27   Shallow Lake   
    4  Solomon Tsewameskel1:35:41  3:50   1:35:37    46:44   48:57  Kitchener      
    5  Kyle Aitken              1:39:54   4:00     1:39:49    50:48   49:06  Mississauga    
    6  Mike Tickner           1:40:55   4:02      1:40:50    50:48   50:07  Kitchener      
    7  Todd Willoughby     1:43:29   4:09     1:43:24    52:42   50:48  Fergus         
    8  Dana Fox                 1:45:42   4:14    1:45:36    51:06   54:36  Waterloo       
    9  Jim Seeds                 1:46:12   4:15    1:46:08    52:28   53:45  Waterford      
   10  Paul Trebilcock       1:49:08   4:22    1:49:01    54:26   54:42  Hamilton       

On Friday I took some pictures at the RBG in Hamilton.  There is more to Hamilton than Steel mills and Hess Village…

This tree was attacked by gypsy moths and had to be cut down.  They used all the wood and made a block beside the tree, and now it’s art.

These New Balance trail shoes in the above picture were key for the trail run.  The treads on the bottom gripped well without picking up mud and grass.

.

.

.