2013 Montreal Marathon Recap: A Worthy Read

September 20-22, 2013 I was in Montreal, Quebec Canada for the Rock N Roll Montreal Marathon. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. Here's what happened:

Almost everything printed is in French first, then English

Thursday & Friday before heading to the airport
Consumed little to no overly fibrous foods. Fiber, especially that from green, leafy vegetables, takes a while to process and I didn't want to bog down a soon-to-be efficient system (we'll get to that later!). However, in order to absorb more carbs, I did a carbo dump whereby I consumed little to no carbs over the whole day Thursday and most of Friday. This was pretty difficult as I really like carbs, especially cookies! Then starting Friday night and Saturday, was a carb fest and I was feeling better.

Saturday in Montreal

Usually I try to do the least amount of moving as possible the eve of a marathon race. You want to try to conserve energy and stay off your feet as much as possible. But this is Montreal however. Having never been, I had to go and do a bit of exploring. This includes the cuisine. Had to have a dish served in the old town Montreal area: poutine. It's basically fries, covered in gravy and topped with cheese curds and is absolutely amazing!

I did a lot more walking around the old cobble stone area and along the port area. It's a beautiful city. All of that walking made me hungry for dinner.

Saturday night in Montreal
Dinner was at Le St. James Hotel in Montreal. A nice restaurant, XO. What a venue! If you ever visit, I highly recommend a trip there. If you don't want the food, at least have a drink in the bar! Totally worth it. Had an interesting dinner with wine (of course!)

Appetizer was escargot-stuffed pasta which was pretty tasty. My main course was black cod with peas and clams. The clams had corn froth in each shell. Never knew that existed or could be paired with clams, but it was very good. Dessert was a pear and chocolate: a pear soaked in pomegranate juice, cored and filled with cream, chocolate mousse cylinders, a dried pear ring, and a scoop of chocolate ice cream resting on a bed of chocolate cookie crumbs (similar to crushed Oreos without the cream) with ginger. All of it was delicious and worth a second trip my next time in Montreal! (scroll down for the actual marathon part)

Marathon Sunday
Woke up at about 4am for the 830am start time. Had oatmeal with added chia seeds, a couple of fruit strips and baby food fruit. I also had a few handfuls of mixed nuts as well. Protein and easy foods with plenty of water usually does the trick. And with chia seeds, they actually become gelatinous when added to water which also help in water absorption. With the fruit and fiber, you want to get the essentials in your system for quick absorption and out of your system just as quickly.

Walked about 2.5 miles to the start of the event and nearly had to bear down maternity ward style while searching for a port-o-john. Finally reached the line for one in my starting corral, Corral 1, at the end of the pictured bridge. Thankfully we started at the end of the bridge instead of in the middle.

 The weather, however, was another story. It was cold (about 55 degrees), windy and raining for about the first half of the marathon, basically for the first 1.5 hours. At one point, I couldn't figure my sweat from the rain on my face! I was hoping my iPod Shuffle or earphones wouldn't short. I was mid-experiment as I was running using classical music for the first time. I wanted to concentrate on my breathing patterns and wanted to focus on keeping it under some sort of control and remaining relaxed and calm during a marathon-distance race.

The course was really cool. Maybe the most scenic this year, thus far (not including Hawaii, but that's in December). Ran off the bridge and down through a roadway leading to the pictured amusement park, La Ronde. I had no idea it is Montreal's Six Flags. It was pretty cool running through the grounds and along the closed roller coasters. I was over the puddles, though–so much so that I stopped trying to avoid them and started going through them instead. I was already soaking wet anyway, so a few splashes wouldn't hurt at all. Just when I thought it was pretty cool, the course became cooler as we entered onto the Montreal Formula One race track.

We ran along the same twists and turns as the racers, and even along the biodome. That picture with the race track and biodome there, I ran around that curve. It was pretty neat. Never did see the biodome. Trees everywhere blocked my view. After that we ran through Old Town Montreal and the cobblestoned roadways, several trying hills and through neighborhoods and along parks. All through to the finish!

I can't say how glad I was to see the finish line. I had run the entire distance. At times my feet were feeling like I was lifting lead with every stride, but I kept truckin' along. Everyone was cheering us runners on from all over the course (no idea what they were saying as everyone was cheering in French, but the sentiment of cheering for marathoners is pretty universal). It felt good to cross the finish line at 3:22:27 (or something like that!) considering the rain, hills, twists and turns and cobblestones.

Would I do it again? Prolly!

The orange drink was maybe the best I've had! Completely demolished the coconut Greek yogurt. Not sure I was too keen on the vegetable juice after the marathon, but it was tasty. The Gu was picked up at mile 20, but I never slurped them. And there's the biodome I never saw as my medal!