SUN RUN 2005

Sunday April 17th, a bright but very overcast day. Race Day.

As forecast the day starting at 7am ish was overcast and threatening to rain. Luckily the rain didn't decide to drop until shortly before the race when all 48,000+ runners were huddled wating on Georgia for the start. It was pretty cramped under the Marriot awning I was sharing with fellow shivering runners.

There wasn't really that much room for stretching, or any kind of warm up run. So body heat had to suffice for the moment.

Teh Elite runner wave and the Yellow wave of runners were let out of the gate first. You can see on the picture that there were balloon arches marking out where respective bib colours had to line up according to anticipated finishing time.

The Bands had already been playing an hour to lift spirits and provide a beat for everyone to run to. Then the Greens were let loose...

The first 2km down georgia nad around the edge of Stanley park were mainly downhill, and assisted by wind and cooling rain most people went out pretty fast. There were a few sharp turns leading up to Beach Avenue, and the fresh precipitation made it a little slippery underfoot. Turning into beach avenue, close to the first water station a guy lost his footing on either a manhole cover or discarded soggy cup and crashed into me mid stride on his way down, taking me with him.

Nothing felt bad enough to stop so I carried on. The troublesome ankle took a bask and was a little swollen, as was my thigh and elbow. So the pace had to slow. Before the race i had set a realistic goal of 40-45mins. I knew that i would come in slower than that. The Burrard bridge was difficult due to the gradient, but once over the hump in more ways than one I tried to push on fo rthe final 5Km.

Having turned onto 2nd and eventually 6th Avenue, the road was straight and flat. Ended up passing a fair whack of people. Didn't have a clue where Sarah was at this point having lost sight with the little mishap.

Turning onto Cambie was myself and a wall of humanity so i hopped onto the footpath- this was a fair and legal move, so I was then able to make a bi tof a sprint finish and salvage a bit of time. My final time was 53: 43min. Not bad but would have liked better. Sarah beat her goal of 1 hour and ended up with a time of 52:02.