Toronto doesn’t deserve a marathon! Well, maybe only one.

What I Think About When I’m Running...

Last weekend there were two marathons in Greater Toronto Area - one went along Yonge St., Toronto’s main street, splitting the town in half. The other one temporarily disabled traffic in Mississauga, a community of half a million to the west of Toronto. It created a traffic mess of proportions intolerable to most Toronto drivers.

Here I must say that Toronto is by far the most runner-unfriendly town I know. I’m not going to sugar-coat it. Torontonians show no support, or even understanding for the marathon running, especially if it crosses their path. They honk annoyed at the road blocks, flip the finger to the runners. Last October a car swung around a police officer blocking the road, and cut through the runners (right in front of me) in downtown Toronto. Accordingly, the town’s many media outlets only reflect the hostility to the sport, as it’s nicely pointed out in THIS article. And it doesn’t help when competing organizers try to squeeze not two, but three major races annually, and when two of them happen on the same day. As a result, the attendance in all three marathons is low and I could almost understand Torontonians grumbling about the road closures.

For last weekend’s marathons, a friend and avid marathoner Yumke crunches the attendance numbers in his BLOG. Even the third, and arguably most popular Toronto marathon, the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon, while boasting about attracting upward of 15,000 participants, rarely admits that this number consists of joint attendance numbers for 5k, half AND full marathon races. Its flagship race, the Waterfront full marathon, had only 2,719 participants in 2010, according to the Sportats.ca

As someone who ran in all three events in town (though not in the same year), I was greatly disappointed with the fan support and spectators, which were few and far between during each of them. It’s preposterous to compare Toronto with Boston, or New York marathon, both of which are packed with crowds stretching the whole length of the course (and bringing millions in tourism dollars to their cities). Still, Toronto likes to think about itself as a “New York of Canada” (to dismay of the rest of the country), but its populous can’t muster even the basic courtesy toward runners. Heck, even if they only stopped complaining AGAINST the race would be a major step forward.

That is why I think Toronto doesn’t deserve a marathon race. But, if there needs to be one, why not focusing on creating a SINGLE ONE, respectable race, which will attract runners and tourists from around the world? As a bonus, if the roads are closed for only one race and only once a year, maybe—just maybe—Torontonians would stop grumbling about it. And, who knows—they may even come out in numbers to watch the race, to cheer the runners on.