Around the Bay - Spectator's Perspective

The 115th (Older Than Boston) Around the Bay Road Race took place on Sunday. This marks the second year in a row that I have registered and backed out due to injury (ITBS last year, shoulder separation this year). I have to admit - when I saw the forecast of heavy rain and winds, I wasn't too disappointed not to be participating this time around. But I do hope this race is in the cards for me next year.

We were up early and carpooled into Hamilton with some friends. It was overcast when we left the house, started sprinkling along the way and raining by the time we arrived. We met up with Sarah and her hubby at Copps Coliseum and stayed inside together as long as possible before heading toward the start.

I was excited to run into Mel who was anxious-excited-nervous about her first 30K. Hubby snapped a quick pic of Mel and I before we wished her good luck and sent her on her way.



If you haven't already, make sure you check out Mel's "Coming up from behind" race report - she did awesome!

At this point, it was really raining and I don't think any of the runners were particularly looking forward to the long, cold, wet and windy 30K ahead.... except maybe my husband. He loves this stuff.

Mark had offered to pace our friend Patricia who is running Boston next month, targeting a 2:30 finish. Colin (Sarah's hubby) was running his first 30K and hoping for something around 3:00.

We saw them off at the start and managed to pick them out in the hoards of runners as they passed. Here's a quick shot a snapped at the start.



(Our friends and husbands are in there somewhere, probably about 3000 runners behind these guys!)

We scurried back inside Copps to grab a hot drink and find some great seats in the front row where we could watch the finish. Here's a look at the set-up inside the coliseum. The screens aired footage from the street so we could watch for the runners before they entered the finishing chute.



We got comfortable and enjoyed watching the 5K finishers come in, which definitely helped pass the time. We even got to witness a proposal at the 5K finish line - how cute is this? Kind of hard to see, but the banner says "Melissa, will you marry me?"



(She said yes!)

It wasn't long before the 30K winner came in with an incredible time of 1:35:29.



Hubby and Patricia came in right on target at 2:30 (unfortunately Mark's chip didn't register at the finish line so he has splits through to 20K but no official finish time - kind of frustrating!). We were amazed at how well they did with the conditions. They were literally soaked through, head to toe... but still smiling.



It wasn't much longer before Colin finished strong, also on target for his 3:00 goal. Very impressive for his first 30K in some crap weather on a challenging course.

To hear more about the event, check out Yumke, Sonia and Vava's race reports.

Congratulations to all!