Meet Vicki

Vicki and I at the Suit Review.

The Waterloo Running Series hosted nine races in 2012, consisting of sixteen separate running events. They vary in terms of location and theme, and most significantly, difficulty.  This raises an interesting question: is it even possible to run every single race in one year?

Not even the writer of this blog was at every race this year (although I did live-tweet the Dirty Dash remotely, to the best of my ability.)  It turns out, however, that we do have one such runner in 2012!  I had a chance to “sit down” with Vicki, and I got the full story:

J. Why do you run?
V. I run because I love to run. It’s a great escape from regular life.

J. How many KMs did you run in 2012?
V. As of December 24th I’ve run 2120.2 km. But it’s not the end of the year yet. : )

J. Where do you find the time to run all those KMs?
V. That’s an excellent question. I have no idea. I fit it in where I can. Sometimes I run before work, other days it is after. On the weekends I currently run both Saturday and Sunday. Since I love to run, it doesn’t feel like a chore.

J. When did you start running?  Any tips for new runners?
V. I started running very casually in 2005 and then ran my first race in October of 2006. It was the Oktoberfest Run and I loved it.  For new runners: run your own race and your own pace.  Don’t compare yourself to more experienced runners.

J. What keeps you coming back to the WRS?
V. The fantastic organization of the races, the friendliness of the volunteers, the accuracy of the courses, and of course, the location.

J. What does Ryan think about this?
[Vicki’s husband Ryan is the WRS photographer with Shoot The Thrill photography.]
R. No comment : )

J. ENDURrun and Santa Pur-suit are very different races.  You must really love running?
V. Absolutely! I love all kinds of running as well. I love the challenge and camaraderie of the ENDURrun and the novelty of the Santa Pur-Suit was a new, fun, different type of challenge.

J. What was your craziest running story from 2012?
V. After entering the lottery for the NYC Marathon for 3 years in a row without being chosen to be in the race, this was finally my year to run it. I had my base training from the ENDURrun under my belt and was keeping my mileage up for the November race. When news of Hurricane Sandy started coming in, I kept a very close eye on the weather forecasts and on the news reports. After the storm hit the coast and I saw the devastation in NYC, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I received an email from the New York Road Runners the next morning stating that the race was still going ahead as planned. I packed my clothes for vacation, but still wasn’t sure about going. On the Thursday morning, after a long discussion, I made the decision to cancel my entry and to defer to the next year. As it turns out, the race was then cancelled by the organizers the following day. Luckily, we were able to cancel our hotel room and flights before traveling, unlike some other runners who were already on their way.
Since I was now going to be in town for the weekend, the REMEMBERrun fit in quite nicely and I was able to accomplish what I did not quite do last year. In 2011, I had registered for every single race in the WRS, but was unable to attend the Oktoberfest Run due to an out of town wedding. This year, I had registered for all but one race because I was going to be in NYC. So now, I had a blessing in disguise. I was able to sign up for and run every single event in the WRS in 2012.  [That was a close call!]

J. What support and motivation do you have along the way?
V. I have a lot of good friends who are “crazier” runners than I am. We all support each other in our training, whether we train together in person or virtually. The running community in town and people I’ve met through the ENDURrun are great.
[One such ENDURrunner Paul, ran 15 of the 16 races in 2012.  “Guess I have to try it all again next year.”  That’s the attitude!]

J. Are you crazy?
V. Yes, but in a good way. At least I like to think it’s in a good way.  [Of course!]

That Vicki ran all of our sixteen events this year is both an exceptional accomplishment and a brilliant testament on behalf of the 7,300 participants.  For that, we say, thanks!
If you were inspired by this story, you can follow and interact with Vicki on her blog and on twitter.
If you’ve got a great Waterloo Region running story like this, let us know!

/JS

Here’s a gallery of the photorecord of Vicki’s 2012 Waterloo Running Series.  One from every race!