Sunday Scrutiny — Race Week

Another round of Sunday Scrutiny with Chris Pedersen. This week is a little more exciting as there was a race today — The Vancouver Sun Run.

I did not taper this week for the race because it is not a trail race, just a check on how well I am doing with my training.

Monday saw a 10k tempo run to see how I could handle the 10k at a good clip. I ran 43:00 on Monday and felt pretty confident going into the rest of the week. It also gave me a goal for the Sun Run as I had no time comparison going in. I wanted to beat 43:00 on Sunday at the Sun Run.

The training fell off tues-thurs due to meetings, teaching, planning, others sports and just life. Bad excuses but it happened. Thursday became normal again as i did an 8k trail run through the forests above Caulfield in West Vancouver. It was muddy, sunny and a great uphill grind to get my legs pumped. Now I should have rested on Saturday but the sun was shining and I had to get outside. Bad and good decision.

The run on Saturday was great. I went from Yaletown down to Kits beach and then back along the Seawall to Cambie Street. The bad news was that my calf started hurting late in the run. It had hurt a month ago and I took some time off to heal. Needless to say I was worried. I iced, stretched, rolled and rested last night and this morning it felt great. Even during my warm-up run and stretches.

Race Day:

I woke up nice and early to have a warm bowl on oatmeal, syrup, nuts and water. I wanted to get well hydrated before the race began. I was also nervous about my leg so I stretched several time before heading out to the race.

Left the house at 8:30 and took the train down the Vancouver City Centre. I have never seen the train so full. There was running shoes and spandex everywhere the eye could see. It is good to see so many people getting out to run. Apparently, there were over 50,000 people at the Sun Run.

Once downtown I did a short warm-up and stretch before taking my place among the thousands of people waiting for the gun to go. It was an amazing experience. When they played "Oh Canada" everybody sang and it was the loudest rendition I have ever heard. Make one truly proud to be Canadian and living in Vancouver. Once the gun started the pinball game was on. To get ahead the faster runners had to doge around everybody. Eventually I got annoyed of this by 2k and started running with others on the grass and sidewalks. This opened the race up and I was able to keep a consistent pace up until km 5 and the Burrard Street Bridge. 

At the Bridge I slowed down for the middle section of the race so I would be able to sprint for the last 2k. 

It was great to see so many people cheering the runners on. There was one scary moment as we were running along Beach Avenue though when an apartment building was on fire. There were flames erupting from the windows, quite a sight.

After the Burrard Bridge the race was quite flat until the Cambie Bridge. I enjoyed the section between the Bridges as it was just gut it out running until the final sprint.

It was amazing to see all the people going over the Cambie Street Bridge, quite a sight. With about 1.5k left I picked up the pace and managed to get quite a bit faster until the last 500 metre sprint to the finish. It felt so mazing to cross the finish line with thousands of other people and just enjoy the atmosphere of the run.

Weekly total: 40k

Year total: 229k