Quebec City and the Quebec Des Deux Rives Marathon '99

Quebec City is cool- very pretty. Everyone speaks french. The old walled city is on top of the hill which has steep granite sides. Cascading stairs (and now public elevators) take people between the high city and the lower. All european architecture with the warrens of small streets and old, odd stone structures. Quebec City is just 20 minutes from a large forest area with kayaking and mountain bike trails. North of that- nothing but nature and lakes etc. Other 'non-historic' parts of the city have all the charm of your average northern quonset hut strip mall town but the neighborhoods in Levis seemed nice with little old town centers and that european low row-house style where pedestrians can reach in and change the TV channel or lean on the sill and talk with a friend they just spotted stepping out of the shower. Found this interesting hippie enclave built under the overpasses with sculpture gardens and decent graffitii.

26.2M 4'17 @9'49's BIB 1125 41.92 km = 26.2M conversions + 9'M = 5'36K = 3'55 + + 8'40M = 5'25K = 3'47 + + 8'30M = 5'18K = 3'42 + + 8'M = 5'K = 3'29 + data km1 5'15 km2 5'14 km3 5'12 km4 5'06 km5 4'30 km6 4'48 km7 5'14 km8 5'03 km9 4'46 km10 4'46 km11 4'46 km12 4'46 km13 4'56 km14 5'12 km15 5'13 km16 5'20 km17 5'13 km18 5'16 km19 5'13 km20 5'17 km21 5'35 1/2 Marathon km22 5'36 km23 5'57 km24 6'41 km25 7'11 km26 6'57 km27 7'33 km28 7'16 km29 7'00 km30 8'30 km31 6'42 km32 death

The Quebec Des Rives Marathon: I got my ass kicked. Got a medal. Beautiful day. 4'17. I got some blue hair before the race. That created quite the stir. Something like "Alle Bleu. Tres Flash. Bon Chance Bleu" and so on. Portland Marathon is too soon (3 Oct). I think I will have to try running out slow even if my time suffers (it can't get any worse and still even pretend to be running). The Quebec Marathon course is very nice. Some downhill in the first 1/3 of the race. Sizable uphills later. But all river front running with good views of the old city and the Ville de Quebec. Good race organization. You start the day at dawn riding a ferry across the river to Levis. The run takes you down to the Pont du Quebec, across, and then back into Petit Champlain in the lower city. I would recommend this race in 2000. I met a woman named Joanne from Montreal who drove me to the ferry. This was to be her first marathon (although she was a competition snowboard racer- maybe 40 with kids). We ran the first 5 km and then I said I was going to run 5'15 kms and she dropped back at her own pace saying "I'll catch up with you later". I ran half the race at that pace maybe. She passed me at mile 17 while I was slogging up a hill and I would reckon broke 4 hours handily becuase she was running strong when she passed me. I kept up for maybe 1/2 a km. Later a few people on the course saw me running by and yelled "Go Steve!" so she was garnering support for the blue haired guy. Nice woman and clearly a good athelete. Like so many people I meet randomly, she doesn't ever see the Internet but was interested in the digital camera concept.