Olympic Challenge: City 14 done: Montreal - the Hypothermic Half Marathon

So it has been a while but it was time to compete in another Olympic City...this time Montreal.

I decided to do another half marathon but this time with the added challenge of it being in the snow. The title of the Hypothermic Half Marathon gives an idea as to how cold it was expected to be....especially since they actually included a hat and gloves in your registration fee!

Arriving in Montreal it was about -15 degrees centigrade. Quite chilly then.

I spent the first couple of days exploring the city (stopping in numerous coffee shops), ice skating on the frozen lake and even managed to find a spa on a boat in the river to relax in to warm my muscles before the big event.

Race day came around and it was -11 degrees. I dressed and jumped on the metro to the starting area which was at the aquatic centre on an island in the river. It was cold but seeing fellow runners heading to the race in similar gear to me made me feel that I had dressed appropriately and wasn't about to make a fool of myself as the token Brit dressed in too little (or equally too much!)

However; at the start line I was pretty nervous...more so than usual. This was due to the fact that I was unsure of whether to wear spikes on my shoes or not. I thought if I do then all will be ok (aside from making an annoying noise on the parts of the course that may be snow free) but then I was also thinking that if so much of the route didn't require spikes then why wear them at all....risk being that perhaps I could get to a bit that is worse than I thought and fall and break my leg meaning an end to many races in future months. All the locals around me seemed to be spike free so what to do?!

I spoke to a few locals and they recommended that I go without so that's what I did. I thought if it felt too dangerous at any point then I would just walk...this was not going to be a personal best time anyway!

The start was a short 500m run from the aquatic centre so I made my way up there about 15 mins prior to start time. As I got there it was clear that after only a few seconds of non movement in that temperature you really started to feel the cold. I pulled my hat as far as it would go over my ears and kept my hands under my armpits to stay warm. It felt like quite a long time to the gun but eventually after a few minutes delay we were off.

We were on snow free road for a few hundred meters and then on light snow across the bridge to another island. The route was due to take us on one circuit of a larger island and then back over to the island where we started for three loops of the smaller island.

We weren't allowed to wear headphones (although I did have the song Let It Go from the recent Disney film Frozen in my head for the entire run) but my breathing didn't seem to sound too bad and all was going ok. After about 10 minutes though I noticed that my right thumb was feeling absolutely freezing to the point where it stung a little. This can't be good?! I carried on running whilst trying to blow hot air onto said thumb through my glove which felt nice for the second it lasted. I worried that if it got worse I may have to stop to warm up properly otherwise I would be running the risk of taking the name of the race a little too literally and developing hypothermia and end up with a blackened thumb that would eventually fall off which let's be honest is never a good look eh?

Luckily though once I warmed up the blood was flowing well enough through all required body parts and I was really enjoying the race. It was amazing to run in such a beautiful surroundings and the sun was shining off the snow which made for a very pretty sight.

The race was pretty flat and being up with the leaders of the race I was pleased with my progress. I knew I hadn't trained in this type of environment before so as long as I finished I would be happy!

Soon we crossed back over the bridge to the other island to begin our three laps. A nice surprise on the first straight was to see Laura arriving to support me. A quick shout over and she turned round to give me a smile and a wave! Support you actually know always gives me a boost so I think I sped up a little to continue on the course.

It was all going well until we turned to run down the opposite side of the island. It was a straight line affording lovely views of the frozen river and city but was both into a head wind (bloody cold) and also in much thicker snow. This stretch (hereafter to be known as road to hell) was about 1.5km long which was tough enough but the thought of doing it again another two times was pretty bad!

Luckily after the road to hell there was about 500m on snow free tarmac which allowed me to make up time and energy and just at the top of the hill was where Laura was standing so again some free energy to be gained from a wave.

The rest of the course was through some lovely woods and weirdly running in the snow soon became the norm.

On the third time down the road to hell though I could really feel the muscles in my thighs and bum were starting to ache. I think it was a combination of sliding all over the place and the cold that did it.

However; I didn't get any major cramps and carried on through to the end! I crossed the line quite tired and was given a bottle of water that already had ice in it due to natural conditions!

I was very happy to finish in 6th place out of 937 runners in a time of 1 hour 29 minutes 25 seconds. Not too far outside the medals but then again those locals did have a home advantage over me right (sore loser perhaps?!)

Joking aside I had a fantastic race and would recommend this event to people to try even if it is just for the free brunch they give you at the end!

So another city done and now only 9 left....eeek!

Gorgeous sunrise over the snow...