Twenty Babes Abreast

Today was the annual breast cancer run. I like the breast cancer run – the energy is different from any other runs I’ve been in. It’s so positive and warm and good-humoured and communal.

I’m on an all-women’s team. Last year we were called Twelve Babes Abreast; this year we’re Twenty Babes Abreast! We’ve got women and girls and walkers and runners and breast cancer survivors and friends and daughters and sisters of survivors. This is a picture of most of our team in the pouring rain this morning, waiting for our stragglers to arrive. (That’s me in the purple jacket in the middle.)

Our meeting point was directly in front of the starting line. By the time we got to the starting line, it was a solid wall of bodies. We wanted to go towards the back of the line, but we couldn’t penetrate the wall. We had no choice but to be on the front lines! With the elite runners and the Kenyans! Where we had no business being!

And just before the race started, our team captain, Lori, noticed the sign on the back of my jacket. (Everybody is given a sign that says “I’m running for _______________” to wear. You fill in the blank, usually with the name of someone you know with breast cancer. So I had filled mine in with P’s name.) Lori asked me how P was doing. I started to tell her, and we both got all teary. So we’re standing on the starting line with the elite runners, all weepy and hugging each other, and suddenly we’re aware that they’re counting down, “FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!”

You don’t want to be hugging on the starting line when they yell go. You’ll get trampled by thousands of runners. So we let go of each other and we took off like a shot. I ran way too fast, which is the classic racing mistake. By the time we got from Majors Hill Park to Parliament Hill (which, by the way, is uphill), I was winded. And weirdly hungry. My blood sugars were too low. I had to walk for a bit, re-set my running watch, and start over. The rest of the race went fine. We ran across the bridge to Quebec, then along the river and back over another bridge to Ontario, and back to Major Hill Park.

Here are a few pictures I took along the way:

Some of my team mates (that’s Lori on the right: she’s a survivor )

These two girls were on my team too:

I thought this would make a nice shot, all these runners with the Parliament Buildings in the background. And I needed a bit of a photography break.

All in all, a great run and Twenty Babes raised almost $5k in the 5k.