It’s time for another race review!  Saturday September 19th I ran the RBC run for the kids for the second time.  It was also my second time being an Ambassador for the race!  I must say: twice is nice!, times 2! 😉

Being an ambassador for two years in a row allows me the unique opportunity to reflect on last years program and compare it to this year.  I cannot express enough how much the program has improved in one short year.  Myself and 5 others returned as ambassadors along with 19 others to form a very diverse group of runners.  I was very excited at who was selected because many of runners selected I had already befriended or met so I was really looking forward to working with them more closely.  The program was expanded this year from 13 Ambassadors last year to the 25 this year.  Our jobs were to use our social media profiles to create buzz around the event, interact and support other runners and complete one blog post for the race website.  This year we worked very hard to create that buzz and interact with people to encourage them to sign up and meet their fundraising goals.  The race again sold out well before race day!  We were very supported this year by our leader Greg and communication between group members and him was fostered by emails as well as a newly created Facebook group.  The Facebook group proved to be a very invaluable tool for us all to stay informed, learn about each other and coordinate social media promotional events.  New this year was an Ambassadors run which was organized to help us get acquainted with one another.  I, unfortunately, was not able to attend this event but from what I heard from others and saw on social media was very successful and fun!  Next year!…  Also new this year and something I was very excited and extremely thankful for was that New Balance Toronto provided each of the Ambassadors with a $250 gift card to spend at their stores for gear to use while training and during the event.  I couldn’t have been any happier with the gear I selected, how it performed as well as New Balance Toronto’s commitment to us and the race!  You can read more about the gear that I selected and what I thought of it here.

Race day came and we were all told to meet at 730 for a picture and a brief meet up before the 15k runners were to go to the corals.

We ended up being a quite pressed for time so there wasn’t a lot of time for mingling or meeting these people I had been working with for the last few months which was kinda disappointing but there was some time for a couple of other pics.  Like this one with my favorite people left-right: Lisa Root, Cathy van Dergeest, Me, Matt Small, Melly Ciffo & Sandi Swan

The 5 of us were all running the 15k together so we made our way to the coral.  No race for me would be complete without some mid race runfie’s of course!

The course was the same as last year and, again, I had no real problems with it.  It was a good mix of hills and flats as well as street vs park environments.  There was just the right amount of water/gatorade stations and I also saw lots of porta-potties along the route.  Many of the streets in the area were shut down and drivers, for the most part, were very understanding.  Well except for one tiny street we crossed I believe it was Grantbrook street where we heard a lot of angry honking, sorry! At this point I would like to send a huge thank you to all the Toronto Police Officers who were out controlling traffic for us!  It made a huge difference to know you were keeping us safe along the route!  Also this event could not have run as smoothly as it did without the many volunteers and event staff.  They all did such an amazing job, THANK YOU!

As the finish line approached Melly and I decided that we would try to finish sub 1hr 30 mins.  We were able to meet that goal, just barely,  and get our bling!

Now that we had our bling (which was the same as last year but the ribbons were different for each distance {a welcome change}), it was time to enjoy the post race party and food!  I always love the post race party after this race.  Two years in a row now I have nothing bad to say.  The music and entertainment is great the food variety, supply and quality is unmatched.  There were baskets everywhere with bananas and chocolate milk, there was grilled cheese, amazing cookies, egg wraps, coffee and I don’t even think that was all that was available!   Please keep this up for future years!

I had such an amazing time “going further for youth mental health”   I would recommend this event to all my running and non-running friends.  With the change to 5, 7, and 15k distances it really caters to all abilities.  I was surprised to see how many young children there who had completed the run!  As I’ve said multiple times before this race makes a huge impact in the lives of our most vulnerable youth and I am so happy it sells out every year!  So please make sure you include this run in your calendar each year and register early!  Thanks to you the $1000 we raised contributed to over $2 million in total for the Family Navigation Project! Way to go everyone!!  I look forward to participating in this event next year and I hope I will be selected a 3rd time as an Ambassador since it gives me great pleasure to raise money and spread awareness of youth mental illness in our community.

Twice is nice but I’d love a three-peat 😉

#KeepSmilin 🙂