Team Diabetes Race Report: Edmonton Marathon

The 2017 Edmonton Marathon marked my 10th official Team Diabetes event (although I often wear the lovely Team D singlet when I race in other events that I register for on my own, but don’t formally fund raise for). Over the past 15 years, I’ve run 7 international events and 3 Canadian events.

With a long gap in my race calendar until my next international event, the 2018 Big 5 Marathon in South Africa, I decided to focus on Canadian events this year to celebrate Canada150 and to meet more Team D runners from across the country in their home events.

With not so much training being done by myself this year, I kept the national events to the modest 5k and 8k routes, but I still got off the couch and got it done!

I ran an evenly paced race with a nice easy start. I had no intention to “race” this event, I just wanted to keep moving and finish with a smile. At the first kilometre I noticed another Team D singlet on the course and. closer to the 3k mark, she and I eventually met up and finished together.

Kristi Ann is like me. She doesn’t have diabetes, she just likes to run and raise money and chose Diabetes Canada as the charity to help. She’s run internationally with Team D in Iceland and in 2017 has had an incredible run where she completed 13 half marathons!

During the Edmonton event, she ran the half marathon early in the morning, and then came back to do the 5k at midday. We paced each other through the back half finishing with a respectable 37:15 time. That’s one of my slowest ever 5k runs, but after not doing much of anything for the summer, I’ll take it.

Things have to change though. I will be running the half at the 2018 Big 5 Marathon, and it’s an incredibly hilly and sandy course that will demand fitness. So it’s time to get off the couch and get things done – as soon as my quads stop aching.

My lifetime Team Diabetes total currently sits at $82 000 raised with some big cheques still waiting to arrive. I monetize my blogs with branded content as a way to raise money for Team D. Thanks so much to the sponsors here, and on DadCAMP, and to everyone who makes a personal donation to help #EndDiabetes.

I’m not sure when my next race will be, last fall I found a bunch of local events to run with my sons and I plan to drag them out onto the pathways again soon!