This is the half marathon approaching the Chinatown arch. The sound was uncanny — the muffled slap of thousands of sneakers, not much talking, the drumming, and the honking of the vuvuzela.

The vuvuzela? Maybe the vuvuzela should have stayed in South Africa. One of them sounds kind of cool, but please, no more than one!

I didn’t know there’d be so many runners. It was pretty thrilling, in a wacky human mass-gathering sort of way. That so many people would gather together to do such a thing.

Emotionally it’s hard to resist, but then I can’t help thinking how weird it is that we’ve worked so hard to make everything as effortless as possible, with our cars and trains and airplanes and computers and labour-saving devices, to the point where now we have to make up difficult tasks for ourselves to do — like running long distances — just so our bodies won’t rot away from inactivity.

We drive our cars to the gym for a workout. What a bunch of dopes we are!

Then I wondered how a tribe of paleolithic hunter-gatherers would make out in the marathon. First they’d probably think it was silly. “What is it we’re chasing?” they’d want to know. “Is it good to eat?” But I bet they’d outstrip all of us when it came to running a mere 26 miles.

Here’s a pace bunny. Don’t eat the bunny!

Oh, I liked it. It was thrilling. I think it’s great that they’ve changed the course this year so the runners pass through neighbourhoods like Chinatown, Little Italy, and Hintonburg. I’m a lot more likely to show up for something that’s going on right outside my door!

Pic 810
Shoes

May 29, 2010

Two years ago:
Pic 472
Dandelion

May 29, 2009

Three years:
Pic 136
Light

May 29, 2008

For the other parade, see yesterday’s post:
Bye bye baby Buddha

I figure some of the marchers probably had to run home and change out of their Buddhist duds so they could get into their Vietnamese outfits and be in both parades.

There was a strong military presence at this parade. It was like 1970 all over again except that the Viet Cong weren’t invited.

They also had the Ottawa Fire Department band, a bunch of geezers in red shirts. They could really play.

This man just looked like he was having fun in his silly hat.

Young man with a lot of flags.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I love my neighbourhood. I love how you can just be eating breakfast on a morning in May and two separate parades go banging down your street.

After that we headed out on our bikes to see some of the races, but we were too late. Only a few marathon stragglers still had to cross the finish line.

Here’s Judy down at the line.

And that squinty character, that’d be me.

Bye for now!

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More cute ducks

May 31, 2009

On the Laurier bridge.