Montreal and Formula One Qualifying

Over the weekend Autumn, my Father and I had been planning all year to go the Formula One races in Montreal. Although I was looking forward to the event, I was dreading the drive from Boston to Montreal due to this past week's experiences.

I took PTO on Friday, so Thursday night we packed up the car and drove to the Canadian Border and stayed in a hotel on the US side so that we could wake up early and catch the 1:00 pm Friday Practice Session. The drive Thursday night was more or less painless. Autumn drove the car, and I devised a nice pillow cushion arrangement which relieved most of the "driving-related" pains I had previously experienced.

The next morning I wasn't so lucky, and I couldn't get comfortable. We had to pull over and I had to stretch out in the back seat, laying flat on my back with my legs elevated. This is how I entered Montreal.

During the day, we went to the track and had a great time walking around the park that surrounds the race track, watching the Practice Session and looking at all the event vendors. In the evening we explored the carnival-like atmosphere that engulfs the city during the races and walked around the city. All this time I was standing and, though my feet were tired / right leg numb, I wasn't in any severe pain.

Dinner was a different story and was accompanied with a healthy serving of excruciating pain. Throughout the meal I had a 3-8 minute window where I could sit down and rest / eat my meal, and the rest of the time was spent standing or walking around the restaurant in attempts to regain feeling in my leg. Need-less-to-say, after we settled the bill we quickly returned to the hotel.

The next day we returned to the track to watch the Qualifying Session and my pain followed a similar trend: bearable while on my feet and a sit/stand/walk technique on the bleachers to manage the pain. Luckily the Qualifying Session is in three short chunks of time: Q1 - 20 minutes, Q2 - 15 minutes then Q3 - 10 minutes, all of which were bearable.

That night at dinner, after humoring my sit/stand/walk technique for 20 minutes, I retired to the hotel room from the intense pain before appetizers were served.