Vanessa Ventura says she’s disappointed, after training for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Oasis Montreal Marathon only to find out that it has been cancelled.
“My husband sent me a link that read the Montreal full marathon was cancelled. I started crying when I found out,” Ventura told Global News.
“I was extremely upset, once you train for this type of thing, change your diet, prepare your mindset in the last week — it’s complete disappointment.”
The marathon (42.2 kilometres) was cancelled because of unseasonably high temperatures — forecast to be a humid 31 C on Sunday.
Ventura said it would have been her 10th marathon since she started running marathons in 2005 — her fifth in Montreal.
READ MORE: Montreal marathon cancelled because of dangerous heat conditions
She has also gone to Boston, Philadelphia, Niagara Falls and Toronto.
The Pierrefonds-Roxboro resident explained she runs all year round, but her marathon training regimen begins four months before a race.
Her routine sees her waking up at 5 a.m. on weekends to run a route starting at the Cap-Saint-Jacques Nature Park, going around Île Bizard, then heading home — a total of 31 km.
High humidity
Dr. Mitch Shulman said it can take runners up to two weeks to adapt to a big change in temperature.
“My heart goes out to the runners and whoever trained, but purely from a medical view — to minimize risk — it was a wise move to protect the health of the runners.”
In 2015, the weather was also hotter than usual.
One person died; another collapsed at the finish line but was resuscitated by an onsite doctor.
Ventura said that year was the only race that had “extreme conditions.”
“I remember being really sick, people were spraying runners with hoses from their houses, the runners were encouraging each other throughout, after 26 kilometres people started dying down,” she said.
“Once you cross the finish line, you have to walk it off. They wrap you in an aluminum blanket. I felt delirious because I was dehydrated, once I walked it off, I fell to the floor. Montreal [2015] was the only one where I felt like this after a race.”
Nevertheless, Ventura explained she was hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon after the race in Montreal.
READ MORE: Stéphane Demers returns to Montreal marathon year after ‘dying’ at finish line
“I’ve been looking at other marathons to qualify for the Boston marathon. I might do the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October, which is also a Boston marathon qualifier,” she told Global News.