Sunday 29 November 2009

Medal Ceremony

If you came here from the Défi site looking for my report on my Défi 2009, then click here.

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On Thursday, November 26th I went to the Verdun Auditorium for the Medal Ceremony of the Défi 2009. We were only thirty people in total, probably the smallest group that I have ever seen in any of the seven medal ceremonies that I attended.

The food was good, the conversation interesting, it was a quite enjoyable event.

Mr. Fortier gave the medal first to the "winner"* of the Défi, who was in a rush to leave and then he started the ceremony the usual way, at the bottom and going up. I was, of course, the first one called to the stage because I had been the last one to finish the event. As I took more than twelve hours to complete the Défi, I didn't get a medal, just the certificate.

The funny part happened a few minutes later: one of the participants went to the stage, took his silver medal and those of some friends and after returning to his place at the table, he came to me and gave me one those medals! Wow! I wasn't expecting such a show of generosity! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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* I put "winner" in quotes because for me anyone who completes the Défi is a winner, it doesn't matter if you crossed the line first or last.

Monday 19 October 2009

Défi 2009: The worst ever!



The thirty-second summary, for those in a hurry

This year, with all the construction going on in Montreal, it was really difficult to skate; there were way too many places with no pavement, just
pebbles; and I felt cramps for most of the way. My total time was my worst ever: 12h16!

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And here the full story, for those with a lot of time in their hands

Pre-race

My wife and I left home at 5h and were at the Verdun auditorium a little afte
r 5h30. As I had pre-registered, I just got my registration package and t-shirt and started my preparations.

The day started cold, we were at zero degree Celsius! Brrr! I had three layers of clothes on my upper body and two on the lower body. The temperature eventually got better during the day, but that was the coldest start ever for a Défi.

I was ready ten minutes before the start, we took some pictures and I went outside to do some warming up skating. This year we had the smallest crowd ever, the highest number that I saw was 59!

When Mr. Fortier warned us that we would leave in one minute, I said goodbye to my wife and went to the start line with everybody else. As usual I got to the back of the pack. We counted down from ten seconds and started our day of skating at 6 am.

Phase 1

Skating in the dark is always a weird feeling, but by now I'm used to it. I could see a lot of stars, it was a magnificent view!

Phase 1 was mostly uneventful. I quickly got into "cruise mode", there's no need to hurry, I passed some skaters, some others passed me, I was at a comfortable pace.

The one notable absence was the wind. Some years we had strong headwinds in this phase which made our lives difficult, but this year the air was almost still. Cold as hell, but still, which was a welcome change.

I got to the end of phase 1 at 7h30, which is my "normal". The problem is, I had already started feeling cramps coming up. I sat down at the end of this phase, drank some water, talked to the volunteer there. A few skaters passed by while I rested, some people that I had previously left behind. Little did I know that I would never be able to reach them again...

Phase 2

I had to start phase 2 at a lower rhythm, in order not to upset my muscles, specially in the calves. Any sudden movement and I would feel a stinging pain. At this point I wasn't too worried because I had had cramps before at the Défi. Usually they start in the middle of phase 2 and go away after an hour or two, so I thought I would still be ok.

Up to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue this phase was ok, even considering the pain in my legs. Here we met with our first detour. I say "we" because a little before another skater had caught up and stayed with me for a while.


I had been in this section the week before to check out the route, so I knew what was ahead and helped my colleague, telling him not to go too fast down the Lamarche street because there was a patch of pebbles down there.


As usual, I stopped right before the Senneville hill for some resting, water, food. My colleague continued. A few other skaters passed by. I wished them luck on the hill.

I'm a movie star!

When I finally decided to tackle the hill, I saw that Mr. Fortier was up there, filming my performance. Oh boy, I hope he doesn't put that in the next DVD, I was awful! :-)

Going up the Senneville hill is never easy, but this year was even worse due to my cramps. Usually the cramps start after
I clear Senneville, but this year...

Well, if it goes up, it must come down, right? After the hill there is a nice slope downward. There was no traffic at all, I could go in all security, it was quite good.

The Senneville moonscape

This year I was carrying my daughter's cell phone with me in orde
r to facilitate communication with my wife (who had gone home and would meet me for lunch). Everybody has cell phones these days, Bell is taking down their payphones everywhere, it gets really hard for people without cell phone like me to place a call. But I digress...

My wife called me exactly when I was going through what I call "the Senneville moonscape". That Senneville road is horrible, always difficult to skate on. And with cramps, it required quite an effort to get through.

Anyway, my wife called, I told her about my cramps, she told me that if I wanted it to give up, she could come and pick me up. I thought: "Me? Quit? Never!". I thanked her but said I would continue, I was still sure that the cramps would go away and I would go back to my "normal" skating.

Pebbles, pebbles everywhere!

This year they are doing construction everywhere, but specially on Gouin. I had gone through the area the week before on my bicycle and I thought "we'll never be able to do this on skates!".

When I got to the main pebble section on Gouin, I fell. I hit a pebble when trying to slow down, got out of balance, tried to correct it with a sudden movement and this sudden movement sent a most horrible shot of pain all over my body and I could not control myself, I fell on my left side and hurt my upper thigh.

A skater who was some twenty metres ahead asked me if I needed help. A man on a car that was just behind me also stopped and offered his help. I thanked them both but said I would be ok, I just needed to rest a bit.

I sat down by the sidewalk and rested for some ten minutes, waiting for the various layers of pain that were now crossing my body to subside a little.

On a marché sur la lune!

Mr. Raymond Bélisle ("the only man to have completed all Défis") caught up with me when I was ready to go and we did the section ahead together.

The next three hundred metres was something like this: skate twenty metres, walk sideways five metres, repeat until you're totally pissed off and want to quit the damn thing.

While we were going through that I told Mr. Bélisle "On a marché sur la lune!". I'm not sure he got my little attempt at humour... :-)

I'm in heaven! But not for long...

When we turned right on the Morandière street, I thought I was in heaven. The pavement is the best that I have ever tried anywhere. Skating there was like flowing on clouds...

But the dream lasted for about three minutes. Soon we got to another patch of pebbles, this one a hundred metres long. And we walked on the moon...

Soon after that we got to the new and desert part of the boulevard Pierrefonds, the end of phase 2 was right before the Château Pierrefonds. I stopped there for some more resting and Mr. Bélisle continued on his own.

Phase 3

When I started phase 3 it was 9h45, which considering everything, wasn't so bad. In my first year at the Défi in 2003 I had passed by the end of phase 2 at 9h50, so I guess that this was ok...

The boulevard Pierrefonds has a good bike path, it was a nice ride. It did seem longer than usual this year, but I guess I can attribute that to my poor physical condition at this point.

I had never given much importance to the detour on the Lalande boulevard but this year this boulevard was closed (more construction...) and we had to continue on Gouin. Boy, how this part is dangerous! I skated on the sidewalk, the street was way too dangerous.

Like a walk in the park


When I got to the bridge of road 13, there was no Gouin anymore! Constructions crews everywhere, heavy machinery and all that. I stayed for a few seconds there without knowing where to go when one of the men in the construction team yelled to me saying there was a passage. When I got to where he was pointing, it was the entrance of the Bois-de-Liesse park. And there was no pavement. Just rocks, wet ground and leaves...

An elderly couple was coming out of the park, I asked them how long that would be. They told me it would be some six hundred metres before I would get back on Gouin. And there I went, marching with my skates on no pavement at all. This is not funny!

After what seemed like at least fifteen minutes, I was back on Gouin. One nice thing was that there was almost no traffic in that part... :-)

Really late

When I stopped under the bridge of road 15 and checked the time, it was already noon. I was really late, I should be under Pie-IX by then!

I called my wife and told her that I would be at our lunch meeting point at 1 pm and continued on.

Lunch time

I passed under the Pie-IX bridge at 12:50, there were no more volunteers there, of course.

I met my wife at a park two kilometers after the end of phase 3 and had my longest pause of the day, I ate the delicious meal that she had brought, drank some Gatorade and told her of all the horrors so far.


Skater #40 passed by while I was there and at that point I knew I was the last skater, there was no one else behind. All of them were either already on their way to the finish line or had had the good common sense of quitting...

My right toe started hurting and I knew that this could only mean a bad case of blister. Add another layer of pain to
everything else that was already going on...

Phase 4

The bridge of road 25 is not yet ready - it doesn't seem that it ever will, after a year there is not much to see there, but I digress again - so there I go for another detour.

After some five hundred metres on the boulevard Perras, more construction, only one lane for the cars, I had to walk on unfinished sidewalk. And then I had to hurl myself over the concrete barrier to go back to the boulevard. What an adventure!

But after that the boulevard was quite a good ride, I stayed longer on it because I knew that the bike path on Gouin is pretty bad at that point. I eventually got back to Gouin at the 24th avenue; later on I saw that I could have stayed on Perras a lot longer. Oh well, for next year...

I eventually got to the end of phase 4 at 3h15 pm. Skater #40 was there, resting and talking to the volunteer. In a few minutes he was good to go, I stayed a bit longer, got some water from the volunteer and rested before facing phase 5.

I asked the volunteer to tell Mr. Fortier that I would arrive after 6 pm, but that I had all the intention of completing the Défi.

Phase 5

It was probably 3h30 pm when I said goodbye to the volunteer and started the last
phase of the Défi.

In this phase I was so utterly tired and achy that I couldn't skate for more than five or six kilometers before taking a break. I did quite a few five-minute pauses in there.

When I stopped at Pie-IX it was already 5h10 pm. I called my wife and told her to be at the Verdun auditorium in 1h15.


The rest of the way was absolutely uneventful, I was just doing it to complete the Défi, nothing more mattered.

When I was at the corner of Wellington and Henri-Duhamel waiting for the lights to turn green, I saw my wife and my daughter pass by on the car. We waved at each other, in five minutes we would be together.

At the last light before the baseball diamond, an old man saw
me and asked me if there was a competition going on. I said yes; he asked if it was close to the end. I could only say "One kilometer more! One kilometer more!".

I got to the finish line at 6h16 pm with a total time of 12h16, my worst ever. This most definitely will be a Défi to forget!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

My usual words of thanks to Mr. Fortier and his incredible team
of volunteers for putting up this amazing event year after year.

My thanks to my wife, who was there when I needed her.

And finally, to my daughter, for lending me her cell phone. It proved to be a good advantage to have it with me.