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Fitness, Toronto Events

Dueling Marathons in Toronto versus Mississauga in 2011

Sunday May 15, 2011 will see the duel of the marathons in Ontario’s GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

Goodlife Fitness Marathon in Toronto

The Goodlife Fitness Marathon will run south on Yonge and east/west along Lakeshore in Toronto.

Mississauga Marathon

The Mississauga Marathon will start near City Hall at Square One, and finish at the Lakefront Promenade Park.

Dueling Marathons

The first duel was actually between the Goodlife Fitness and Scotia Toronto Waterfront marathons. Both held Toronto motorists to ransom in the autumn, just three weeks apart. After a protracted war of words, with City Council acting as moderators, the Goodlife Fitness Marathon was kicked into the spring season.

From what I remember, the Mississauga organizers made no public comment until someone realized that their beloved Mothers’ Day date was poached. (Although, to be fair, Mothers’ Day came a week earlier than those road races this year).

Now the battle has been joined between these civic powerhouses: which race will lose runners to the other?

Today’s Toronto Star reported that both have seen a drop in registrations. That’s a shame, since each earns serious donations for charitable causes. As the Star also noted, it would take at least a three to six week gap between marathons for most runners to decide to register for both.

The clear winner is the Scotia Waterfront Toronto Marathon. They now have what Mississauga used to enjoy: a date with no immediate local rival. In my humble opinion, this is the marathon that Toronto needs. Not the runners, but Toronto needs to nourish the race that holds the record for best time on Canadian soil. It only took about 40 years to wrestle that glorious title away from the 1968 Montreal Olympics.

It is still disappointing that most news articles focus on “drivers: beware of road closures” rather than “come out and cheer for people willing to train and sweat for the privilege of accomplishing a difficult goal”.

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And check the routes so you don’t drive into a roadblock this weekend:

Road Closures in Mississauga.

Road Closures in Toronto (PDF).

(A public service message from DeHaan Services).

References to the event sites:

Goodlife Fitness Toronto Marathon;

Mississauga Marathon;

ScotiaBank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.


Toronto Events

One or Two Marathons in Toronto?

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Should there be one or two marathons* in Toronto?

This has been discussed in the informal running community for some years.

I don’t have ties to either organizer, but it always seemed clear that there was serious competition between the “upstart” Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and the “longer-running” Goodlife Fitness Toronto Marathon.

My carefully-considered opinion comes down to two questions:

  1. If I had to choose to run only one or the other, which would I choose? The Goodlife Fitness Toronto Marathon would be my choice, by a very narrow margin.
  2. Which marathon is better for Toronto? The winner by a landslide would be the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Why?

The Goodlife marathon has more elevation changes; it goes through different neighbourhoods; and the facilities are better (both at the start, Mel Lastman Square, and the end at Queen’s Park with the use of Hart House for a shower and change). It just feels more like a tour of Toronto.

Their site shows that the average runner has a faster time in the Goodlife marathon. Makes sense to me, because it is “net downhill”.

But the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is the race that Toronto needs. Consider the elite finishing times:

  • This is the fastest men’s marthon on Canadian soil. Finally, after more than 30 years, we’ve beaten the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
  • The world record for Men’s age 70-74, Men’s age 75-79, and Men’s age 90+, were set at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. (Thank you: Ed Whitlock of Milton, Ontario; Fauja Singh of London, England).
  • No other marathon on Canadian soil has the men’s winning finishing times comparable to Boston or New York. (Let’s admit that Boston’s route has significant hills, while the Waterfront marathon is carefully flat).

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The reason – the Waterfront marathon organizers have arranged the funding to attract the better elite runners. That’s part of the competition between the two events – getting sponsorships and attracting talent.

So, if we must drop one and keep one, let’s keep the event that has attracted the fastest elite runners: the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

For the record: the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is held on the final Sunday of September. The Goodlife Fitness Toronto Marathon is held in October, on the Sunday immediately following Canadian Thanksgiving Monday. (This normally means there is a 3-week gap between these events. But when Sept. 30 falls on a Sunday, then there is only a 2-week delay).

*For runners, a ‘marathon’ is exactly 26 miles + 385 yards; the metric distance is 42.2 Km. When anyone else talks about a “marathon effort”, they mean “a really big effort”. But in athletics, that’s the distance. How that came to be, is another story…

[This post was last updated 2010-02-03.]