The violent wind blew the wires away

Let me start off with the highlight of the weekend…winning the World Series of Poker on my Blackberry.  After amassing over 2 million dollars on the open tables I entered the World Series numerous times (at $10 000 a pop) in the past few weeks.  Eventually I was the last avatar standing to claim the $5 million purse and become a world-class geek.

Next up was the Montreal Scotia Bank 1/2 marathon this morning (Sunday April 17) on Jean-Drapeau Island.  The two days before the race I was keeping an eye on the weather as it was calling for cold, rainy and windy conditions.  When we walked out of the hotel this morning it was raining yet fairly calm, although that soon switched when the wind came and blew the clouds away.  During the warm-up we knew it was going to be war against the wind. 

Off the gun Matt Loiselle was pushing the pace and we hit 5km in 14:43.  I would tuck in behind Matt here and there and then I would take a turn at the lead however Matt would just run beside me until 8km when he started to fade a bit.  By 9km I was out alone to battle the wind, which was reported as 54 km/h, I don’t even want to guess what the gusts were!?  I hit 10km in 29:51 and proceeded to run a 2:56 km before turning into the wind which produced some awfully slow km splits to get to 15km in 45:29.  At that point I was well ahead of 2nd and not at all excited about the time and sick of battling the wind.  My winning time was 1:04:55. RESULTS.

Although I didn’t get the PB I was hoping for I got my 8th Canadian title.  Cleve was the 6th Canadian in the race today which bodes well for his debut.  John Mason was battling sickness and toughed it out to finish alive, barely.  Young/Wild/Lumberjack Bill also ran for Speed River although he was still making calculations on his peformance to get an idea of how it went.

photo courtesy of Gary Rush

Gillis won the Sun in Vancouver today in 29:05 while Courtney Laurie had a solid run to break 35min.  Derek Snider held it down in Guelph to take the Billy Taylor 15km title as well this morning.

Thankfully there is internet on the train because I’m sick of Blackberry poker and I only have 20 pages left in my book. 

Seeing as Kyle Boorsma just finished up a great collegiate career I would like to highlight how he had to one up me in every catregory…

I got 4 team CIS XC titles in a row, Kyle got 5
I ran 8:09, Kyle ran 8:07*
In 5th year I medalled in all three CIS distance events, Kyle got gold in all
In 5th year our team was third at CIS track, Kyle’s team was second
I won two U of G athlete of the year awards, Kyle won 3
I partied the night of CIS champs, Kyle added Madness Monday