In the seven years that she's attended the Toronto Marathon as either a webmaster or participant, Halfmoon Bay's Teresa Nightingale says the event just keeps getting better and better. And this year was certainly no exception.
Nightingale had not run a full marathon in 15 years, so she didn't know what to expect entering this year's event a few weeks ago.
"My original goal was to run 3:10 (23 minutes slower than my personal best from 1995), but my interval times in the last fewweeks of trainingindicated I should be able to run 3:05 or maybe faster. It would all depend on the day," Nightingale said.
She said the weather couldn't have been more perfect for racing - cool, dry and sunny, no wind, low humidity and it was only for race day - the days before and after weretoo warm, too wet or too windy.
The special Greek-themed events surrounding the 2,500th anniversary of the marathon made it a very memorable race weekend - especially since Nightingale was assigned bib number 2,500.
"To avoid starting too fast, I stuckwith the 3:10 'pace bunny' at first, but hestarted a bit too slow for my liking, and after about five or six km, I moved on ahead at my own pace," she said. "Iclicked off a steady 4:15 km for a long time, going through the halfway mark in 1:30:32. That was a bit faster than I had planned, but I felt OK, so I didn't alter the pace, and continued to feelfine as we headed east towards the Beaches neighbourhood."
She hit a bit of a rough patch between 29 and 32 km and could feel her pace slowing, but once the runners turned around at the eastern end of the course and were heading for home, she said she felt much better and picked up speed again.
"One more tough section around 36k, then wow, only five km to go," she said. "This was the moment of truth: should I jog in comfortably, knowing I could easily stay under 3:10, or push harder and go for 3:05 or better? The answer came easily:go for it.
"I thought, I've worked so hard to get to this point-in the raceand the months of training. This is what it was all for- don't waste it."
In the final 600m, one more womansuddenlyappeared just ahead of her. As Nightingale came alongside, the two runners smiled at each other and Nightingale said, "Let's get this done."
"But she didn't come with me and I continued speeding up towards the finish, crossing the line seven seconds ahead of her," she said. "Turns out that was the difference between third and fourth place master female. The moral of the story: pass as many people as you can, right to the very end, because you never know who's in your category."
Third master earned her $200. The competition was tough this year: the top female master's time was an amazing 2:38, by a 46-year-old fromEngland.
"So I'm now a marathoner again, after a very long hiatus.My mind and body didn't rebel. I will be going backnext year for sure, aiming for sub-3:00," she said.
