Optimism

I met with Bruce for coffee today, opting for a London Fog, hoping to leave both the drink and the race behind once we’d finished. What I thought might be a race postmortem evolved into something much more casual, relaxing. We laid out some loose plans for Ottawa but spent more time laughing, trading stories about London, both the good and the bad.

For him, it was 2004, his last crack at Olympic standard. He’d represented Canada at the previous two games and wanted to make Athens his swansong. I remember hearing stories about him training with Jon Brown, the two of them spending weeks in Whistler putting in epic workouts. Unfortunately for Bruce, after suffering some early gastrointestinal distress, he struggled to a 2:18:30. His dreams ending prematurely, he decided to race Ottawa hoping to collect a pay-cheque, finishing with a respectable 2:20:14. After learning this story, it left me with optimism, perhaps an extra touch of buoyancy in my step, particularly as I only have 20k of pounding in my legs.

After work, Hicham swung by and we decided to drive up to UVic and take advantage of the soft trails. After scurrying through Henderson, looking out for flying golf balls, we looped around the Alumni Trail, down Arbutus and then up through Mystic Vale (twice). As he is in the midst of a recovery week, we clipped along at a leisurely pace thoroughly enjoying the prolonged stint of sunshine… a perfect spring evening!

The photo is one that Ally took last May while we were in Ottawa (she was up in the Peace Tower playing a tourist while I was reading underneath a tree on Parliament Hill). If I remember correctly, the marathon route crosses the bridge in the foreground just prior to 10k.

Training: easy 48:33, AHR 126