{"id":960,"date":"2014-05-26T17:33:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T21:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/?p=960"},"modified":"2014-05-26T17:33:52","modified_gmt":"2014-05-26T21:33:52","slug":"a-last-look-at-ottawa-race-weekend-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/?p=960","title":{"rendered":"A Last Look at Ottawa Race Weekend 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admit I am still struggling a little with the outcome of yesterday’s marathon. \u00a0But the encouraging messages from family, friends and blog readers have been so helpful! \u00a0There have been so many kind words, many of them ending with, “You finished a marathon!!!”<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I wanted to beat my first marathon time was so that I would not have to do another. \u00a0I am serious. \u00a0I really can’t see me running a marathon each year, or as I have just done, running 2 marthons in 7 months. \u00a0I am really looking forward to running faster half marathons and 10k races. \u00a0I can also see me heading to the Around the Bay 30k race each year as my distance run. \u00a0These goals interest me more than the marathon. \u00a0Of course now though, despite the fact that during the marathon I was telling myself over and over again – sometimes out loud – that I will never do one again… well you can guess what I am thinking. \u00a0At some point I am going to have to try another one because finishing up on this one will bother me forever. \u00a0But for now the third marathon can wait.<\/p>\n

As for Ottawa Race Weekend, if this isn’t an event you have tried you need to put it on your list of races to do. \u00a0This is an event that seems to take over the city and I honestly think it must be one of the best races in the world for spectator support. \u00a0I am always amazed by the number of kids who line the streets to cheer on the runners. \u00a0My boys spent quite a bit of yesterday having a blast high fiving marathoners. \u00a0They were thrilled with how many runners would cross from the other side of the road just to get the high five. \u00a0I feel more than a little guilty that I was not in the right state of mind to truly appreciate the spectators who took time out of their day to cheer us all on. \u00a0Next time, I promise.<\/p>\n

I also think it would be tough to beat the scenery, this is simply a gorgeous city in which to run. \u00a0The only unfortunate part was the amount of road construction, but as I heard one person say, there are two seasons in Ottawa; winter and construction.<\/p>\n

As an aside, one amusing part of the weekend was the marathon bus tour. \u00a0I decided to go so I would have a picture of the course in mind and maybe learn a few things about the city. \u00a0I assumed that a runner or race volunteer would be giving the tour. \u00a0Instead it was a City of Ottawa Tour Guide who really had no idea that we were all there to see our course. \u00a0She was unsure of whether or not we were even following the course until the bus driver called out that we were. \u00a0About 3\/4 of the way through\u00a0she asked how far we would be running. \u00a0At one point several people were noting that there was no shade to be found on much of the first part of the route. \u00a0I think she must have looked at someone’s race map, noticed the tent symbol for the water station and then told us that there would be tents for us to rest and relax in! \u00a0She definitely wasn’t getting the whole marathon race thing. \u00a0She also told us that the Quebec area was hilly so that would be a fun area in which to run. \u00a0Uh huh.<\/p>\n

\"Check<\/a>

Check out the size of the marathon medal!<\/p><\/div>\n

The bling for the marathon was awesome. \u00a0The medal is massive and the shirt will make a perfect Canada Day shirt. \u00a0I admit that yesterday I questioned if I would even feel right wearing the shirt given how I felt about my race. \u00a0But today I have decided that the shirt will represent all of my training rather than the race itself. \u00a0I devoted a lot of time to running these last few months. \u00a0A lot more than say housework or cleaning up the yard and gardens. \u00a0I think all of that training is worth a cool shirt.<\/p>\n

And finally some pictures from ORW 2014:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The boys at race pick up.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The canal before the rush of runners.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The sign I made for Luke.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The sign I made for Evan.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Signs<\/a>

Signs made by the boys for me.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"More<\/a>

More signs for me.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"My<\/a>

My 5k boys.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admit I am still struggling a little with the outcome of yesterday’s marathon. \u00a0But the encouraging messages from family, friends and blog readers have been so helpful! \u00a0There have been so many kind words, many of them ending with, “You finished a marathon!!!” One of the reasons I wanted to beat my first marathon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-fu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}