It's Not Luck: These Girls Can Run!

The Go Girls established today that they don't need luck -- not even the luck of the Irish -- to do well in races. It's a good thing, too since we are a wee bit under-represented where the Irish are concerned in our membership.

On a cold, windy, and wet Sunday, two members of the Go Girls, Mariana Fitzprado and Theresa O'Miedema (both assumed Irish identities for the event), participated in the 11th Annual Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K Run. Fitzprado and O'Miedema represented the Go Girls well, with finishing chip times of 28:36.4 and 28:19, respectively...notwithstanding the fact that Fitzprado ran with a sore knee for the entire race and lost her hat as she and O'Miedema came into the last stretch and despite the fact that O'Miedema ran with an untied shoelace for the last 500m of the race.

The race began and ended at Steam Whistle Brewery: a fitting host location for a St. Paddy's Day Race. There was live music, hot Irish chili, and, yes, beer...after the race, of course. We don't drink before races. Even leprechauns know that beer dehydrates you!

Fitzprado and O'Miedema established from the outset that they meant business at the race. They dressed for success. For example, Fitzprado wore a beautiful pair of almost new shoes:

Here is a "before the race" photo. (Yes, this actually IS the Before photo. Post sarcastic comments below.)

Note how cleverly both runners have neatly posted their race bibs to the front of their jackets. These runners aren't amateurs running with bibs pinned to their backs. Of course, after O'Miedema had (finally) managed to pin her bib onto her jacket, she decided to add a layer under her jacket, which meant removing the bib in order to unzip the jacket and beginning all over again. Sigh...


Here is a shot of the stylish timing chips worn by the runners in the race for timing purposes. Look closely. Closer. That's it: that black band thing around Fitzprado's ankle. That black band thing is not an electronic monitoring device mandated by the courts, but rather the timing chip assigned to Fitzprado for this event.




Before beginning the race, Fitzprado and O'Miedema took a short warm-up run. The weather was quite grey and (as you can see in the photos below) it was drizzling. Although the preferred approach to warming up was to find a coffee shop and have a latte (or a hot Toddie), our intrepid runners remained strong and tough. The photo below was taken shortly before the race began. Don't Fitzprado and O'Miedema look like tough Toronto runners? Don't they look stylish (for runners in cold, grey Toronto weather)? O'Miedema even wore a green cap in honour of St. Patrick's Day.

The race began and ended directly south of the CN Tower. This was quite convenient since the runners knew that, if they got lost, they could just use the CN Tower as a landmark to find their way back.

As the photo on the right illustrates, the CN Tower stood rather ominously above us as we lined up at the Start. It looked like a sullen grey sentry, standing over the runners...sorry, the dramatic Irish dynamics of the race seem to have caught up with me there for a moment. Perhaps I'll write a jig about it. Fiddle-dee-dee!

The view from the start line. Fitzprado and O'Miedema managed to get fairly good positioning at the Start, although they were clearly some distance from the actual Start line. Thus, when the horn went off to signal the start of the race, nothing actually happened for about 20 seconds. Fitzprado and O'Miedema stood in place, waiting to move.
But once they got moving, they were a force to be reckoned with on the course. These two lasses kicked some asses by making lots of passes along the route. A runner here; a runner there; these Girls passed runners everywhere. With a shout "Hey" to Ray on Wellington Street, these two Girls were swift on their feet. And thus they ran, looking so fast and fine until appeared the Finish Line.

Finally, this is how we like to see our runners after the race: standing upright and still smiling!

Good job, Fitzprado and O'Miedema! You've made us proud! Just think what we might accomplish if we do some speed work and tempo training! Fiddle-dee-dee, indeed!