Pride and Running

After a long sojourn I’m back! I’ve been a good runner for the last eight weeks, not running, but swimming. I needed to take a little hiatus to recover and not have the one thing I want to do taunting me — it’s selfish and a bit shitty, but there it is. I have running magazines piled up at home waiting, blogs to read and running friends to catch up with!

The legs are feeling great — no more pain, swelling has gone down and there are no more casual “reminders” of the stress fractures. Fingers crossed that my good behaviour has got me off the injury list!

This weekend I had my first run since being sidelined by bi-lateral stress fractures in May (two weeks before the Ottawa Marathon no less) — the Pride and Remembrance 5K! This race is tons of fun, full of colourful and helps great charities, raising more than $55,000 this year. One of this year’s main beneficiaries was the Fife House Foundation, who provides secure, affordable supportive housing and support services to persons living with HIV/AIDS.

One of the groups that I run with is called the Terrible Tutus, and each year we pick a theme and try and co-ordinate some costumes to wear during the Pride run. Last year was our first year doing this and it was rainbow tutus (I had a rainbow “poof” on my hat). This year’s theme was “camo”. Here are some pictures:

The Tutus in all their camo glory!

The lead pack heading out at the start. Top finisher Jay MacDonald of Vancouver finished in 15 min, 39 sec.

I'm getting close to the finish line. The face paint had sweated into my eyes at this point - it was hot!

Toronto's finest sporting pride flags, etc. Much better than all that riot gear!