I'd been sick for the two weeks before it, so hadn't really trained and wasn't at all confident. Having to get up at 6am, with my infamously bad morning temperament, made me even less comfortable with the whole situation. The burning pain in my thighs and chest as I staggered to my umpteenth 'break' of the run just shy of the 9k mark massacred the final shreds of hope I had about beating my last year's time of 65 minutes.
Yet as I panted around the corner to the finish line, spurred on by shouts of encouragement from Lou (who hadn't been able to run due to a badly-timed and insanely frustrating foot injury) and Tom (who had run like the wind and finished before me) I saw the clock at 66 minutes and it all felt worthwhile, as I knew I'd passed the start line a few minutes after the start of the race.
It felt even more worthwhile when I read my chip time (the actual start-to-finish time) of 58 minutes over a glass of champagne - 7 minutes off last year's personal best! Lightning Legs Tom chalked up an incredible time of 48 minutes, having passed an IT exam two days before - well done that man! Big big thanks to Lou too for being massively supportive despite the frustration of not being able to run...here's to the next one!
I'm getting somewhat accustomed to the fizzy goodness of champagne. On Thursday, Exclaim!, a monthly music paper I write for, had their 17th birthday bash at the Phoenix. Being very important, I was invited to the VIP (read: free drinks and canapes) bit before the actual show, and went a bit mad on the whole gratis beverages front. 6 glasses of champagne and Red Bull, a glass of red wine and a Bud later, I was dancing like a wanker to Thunderheist and making stupid posts like the one below. It was a good night all round.
Earlier in the week I'd gone to see the Sounds (who were, as ever, wicked) and been ridden around the city on a road bike, which made me realise the brilliance of having wheeled transportation in a place like Toronto. Since then I've scooted downtown on a BMX (moving embarrassingly slowly, as the crazy owner of said bike has removed the brakes) and sampled my first skateboard action since 3 of us sat on mine in my youth and the wheels fell off. My opinion of all three is this: I like them.
I also shaved my first head this week. It's strange, like undressing someone's brain.
Saturday was unusual. It's not that often that I have weekends off with my flatmates, so after breakfast we played basketball at a court near our place, then Lou and myself headed off to day two of wedding dress shopping. I haven't yet managed to try on a dress (disappointing) but Lou may have just found the perfect frock..result!
On the way uptown we managed to catch a bit of Toronto Freedom Festival, the main event of which is the annual 'Legalise Marajuna' march. We missed the march (as did most of the potential attendees, presumably) but walking through the park and enjoying an ice cream with music blasting out from several stages and people just openly smoking everywhere was pretty funny. Canada seems to be more liberal about weed than the UK anyway, so I'm sure they'll decriminalise it soon enough.
I'm currently looking for a job pretty hard, as I'm starting to hate the stupid arbitrary rules imposed at the smoothie place, but writing for a mag, a webiste, and starting my own site too is eating into all the job hunting time.
Probably shouldn't have written this blog, then....
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