Two days in Toronto

One of our favorite cities for an overnight visit is Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Toronto is an easy city to visit. It is just two hours away from Buffalo, has an excellent public transportation system, and is very walk-able (when the weather is cooperative).   For years we have gone to visit Toronto strictly for the music scene.  But there's more to Toronto than concert halls, night clubs and music. Recently Toronto hosted a world-class marathon on October 16th.  It drew runners from all over the world to enjoy the city and sites.  The weekend featured a well staffed welcome expo, marathon flame lighting ceremony, international friendship run, and pasta dinner to kick off the big run. The marathon course followed the city's beautiful waterfront boulevard and featured festive cheering stations along the way.  The course is known for being "flat and fast" allowing many runners to get their personal best time on the course.

We posted ourselves just before the midway point and were treated to a festive Brazilian band and carnival dancers. From our cheer point, the runners looked awesome!  We were there to cheer on my brother Tom who was running his first marathon and my sister Robin, who has completed several marathon runs.  What struck me was how they both made the run look easy! I know, however, that their abilities to run 26+ miles comes from months of slow and consistent increased training that started back in May.  The training certainly paid off! Tom finished the race in just under 4 hours and Robin was around 4.5 hours. Wow!! I am so impressed and amazed by their hard work! It was a pleasure to be there and to cheer them on!