Running from Burlington to Toronto

The original plan was to run between Niagara Falls and Toronto over two or three days this long weekend. I got a little sick and so the plans slightly changed. I took Saturday and Sunday off to rest, and on Monday I felt good enough to try the last portion of the run: Burlington to Toronto.

My planned route was about 54 km. I ended up only doing a little over 40 km.

Up to Kilometer 20

It was about -1 degrees Celcius when I left. For the entire run, it was snowing. Sometimes it was okay but other times, the wind just blew the snow into my face and made it so much colder. At about kilometer 5, the snow still hadn’t really stuck to the ground yet.

The water in the tube coming from my hydration bladder ended up freezing up so I made a pit stop at Shell to buy a bottle of water. After emptying my hydration bladder my backpack got so much lighter. Since it was so cold, I wasn’t super concerned about needing much water.

I ran over this bridge at some point and thought it looked kind of pretty.

Also passed by some round hay bales on a field.

I ran a bit more, the snow was starting to stick a bit more…

Kilometer 21

My face was was getting really cold because of the snow + wind combo. I stopped at a Tim’s and drank a vanilla latte to warm up. At this point, I was seriously considering stopping because the snow and wind was not dying down at all and I would be running into the wind pretty much the rest of the run. But, while I was sipping on my vanilla latte, I saw that there was a Mark’s Work Warehouse 4 km away right along my planned route. I finished my vanilla latte, ran to Mark’s, and bought a balaclava.

The balaclava did help a lot. More and more snow came…

Kilometer 37 - 40

Reached the outskirts of the city of Toronto.

Lots more snow on the ground now.

Really tired now. Pretty cold again. Took a quick snow angel break.

About a kilometer or two after the snow angel, I called it a day. My legs were tired, shoes were wet, and my nose was running like mad. Maybe I’ll come back another year in the Summer/Fall and try again!

Written on November 11th, 2019 by Kenny Zhang