Vancouver Sun Run race report

I think I was a bit crazy when I signed Tony and I up for the Sun Run. Why would we want to get up insanely early on the last day of our trip, run 10k in a crowd of 50000+ people, then feel rushed to get back and shower so we could catch our plane? Well, it ended up being a nice experience. First of all, it was a beautiful day. Second, we were also running with my friend Angie. Angie has been running regularly with no aspirations of entering races, but decided to take the place of a another friend who had registered and couldn't make it.


We woke up at 6am after having an extremely busy day on Saturday. I dragged myself and Tony out of bed and we got ready. Drove over to Angie's house where we would catch the bus downtown. Being the anal person that I am, I wanted to get there early. We got to the race site around 8:00 (race started at 9:00. There were a lot of people there already. After a bit of light stretching, we lined up. I didn't realize how long the wave starts were going to take. We were all signed up in the 70-90min zone, and we didn't end up starting until 9:45. I did the Sun Run in 1999 (untrained, walking and jogging) when there were about 30 000 people, and I don't remember there being a wave start. Anyways, after standing around for almost 2 hours, we were stiff and cold and couldn't wait to get going. What a weird sight it was to see the mobs of people running down Georgia St. In fact, it was downright dangerous. People were weaving in and out, there were lines of people walking where they shouldn't have been (walkers were supposed to be the LAST wave, way at the back!!) and there were people with strollers, which wasn't supposed to be allowed. Surprisingly though, I don't think the crowds actually slowed us down that much. I had visions of being brought to a dead stop at the narrower parts of the course, but that didn't really happen.



The weather was gorgeous and there were bands along the route playing...motivational music? When we heard the bagpipes, we joked that it sure was motivation to run faster...to get away from them as quickly as possible!!

I didn't see the ballerina dad, who was running in a blow-up fat suit with a ballerina costume. I heard he finished in 52min...wow! We saw a guy in full football uniform running around the same pace as us, helmet and all. He must have been suffering.



As we headed down the off-ramp of the Cambie bridge towards the finish line, Tony started sprinting. Angie and I ran after him, and we finished in around 1:20 (although the clock said 2:06 or something, due to the wave start). Personal records for Tony and Angie, who completed their first 10k! I am very proud of them :)