Toronto Marathon Race Review
I finished the Toronto Marathon on May 5, 2013 in 3:54:10 and I’m satisfied with that result. Overall I found the race to be much more enjoyable than it was in 2005, mostly because of the improved course and better crowd support.
Getting to the start was a bit of a hassle, as it often is in Toronto. The subway gets to sleep in on Sundays here so there’s no public transit. I wish I had paid the extra $8 at registration for the shuttle bus from downtown but I didn’t think about it at the time, so I ended up having to take an expensive taxi.
The start was a chilly 11°C so most of the runners waited inside the North York Civic Centre until about 15 minutes before the race. I’ll definitely bring a ‘garbage bag sweater’ next time so that I can wander around outside. The starting chute was calm and well-organised and the race started without a hitch, although it was a little difficult to hear the announcers.
The first section of the course runs down Yonge St and is mostly shaded and downhill. There’s a big hill called Hog’s Hollow at about the 4km mark but it’s not as bad as people make out (in 2005, this hill was at the 21km mark).
The course then turns west on Chaplin Cres and meanders through the upscale residential neighbourhood of Forest Hill, goes around Casa Loma and then out through the Rosedale Valley to Bayview. This was the most enjoyable part of the course for me because it’s quiet, pretty and shaded.
From Bayview we ran through Corktown and the downtown core to Bathurst, past Fort York and onto the Lakeshore path. This was my least favourite section - it’s drab and industrial, but is still shaded.
On the Lakeshore, we shared the Martin Goodman trail with non-participants out for their morning job/walk/cycle which I found a little odd. I’m not used to having to watch out for pedestrian traffic during a race. This section is completely exposed to the weather, and it was starting to warm up by this point, and I was very thankful for my hat and sunglasses. But at least the weather wasn’t windy.
I was on target for a 3:45 up until about the 30km mark when my pace slowed a little with the heat and the pancake-flat monotony of the Lakeshore section of the course.
The finish line was not visible on approach because it was around a sharp turn. My familiarity with the area helped here, as did the increasing crowd support. The crowd support through the last kilometre was awesome, and I even managed to see my wife and son a few hundred metres before the finish.
The finishers area was spacious and surprisingly not chaotic. I grabbed a few drinks, something to eat and exited to meet my family.
Overall it was a great race and I’d love to run it again. Who knows, maybe I’ll run Toronto’s other marathon, the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October…
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