Well, I survived my first running sunrun. Last night I went over to Geri and Robs for the pre-race festivities (bbq and hockey game on the tube) and crashed in their spare bedroom to avoid the “oh god it’s 6am and raining and I don’t want to drive into vancouver” syndrome. Having people around you helps with that. I was rousted from bed at some un-earthly hour (7 I think) and we ended up leaving around 7:45 in Graham’s (a good guy who I met the night before at the bbq) car.
Ride on skytrain. Ride more on skytrain. Change to other line. Get pressed in like sardines. Repeat.
We got to downtown vancouver where the race was starting around 15 minutes early (the race started at 9am). We stood around getting cold for a while, with our only excitement being a man who was watching from the window of a nearby hotel wearing only a pillow. A while later his girlfriend/wife/hooker/whatever came to the window wearing only a sheet. Later he returned sans-pillow. It was quite amusing to see the entire section of road, jam-packed with people yelling and waving to an almost naked man on the 14th (or so) floor.
We stood for a long time. Around 9:30 or so we realized that the winner of the run had already crossed the finish line.
Around 9:45 we started moving, and around 9:56 we crossed the start line. This year was the first year that I decided to actually run, despite the lack of proper training recently (been slacking on my treadmill time). And to be honest, it went pretty well. I didn’t push really hard, but didn’t walk too much, or at least tried to keep it to a minimum. I think I probably ran about 15km by the end of the race, just running back and forth trying to avoid people on the road (for the un-initiated, the sunrun is 10km/6.6orso miles).
I’m not sure how, but continually through the 10k there were people walking… old people… crippled people… people in walkers who I have no idea what they were doing there and not at the very end of the last people to start. Probably there to keep people from slacking (“hey that old guy in the walker is at 6km and I’m just getting here…. better kick it up a notch!”).
Around halfway through the occasional drop of rain started getting worse, and the last 3k were just downright miserable. Rainy, windy, foggy… bleah!
I wanted to run the entire last kilometer, but of course it started going up a steep onramp…. full of people…. so that didn’t work out that well. I did push it the last few hundred meters (as best as one can through a mass of people) and still had a bit left in me. I think my final time was around 60 minutes, but I can’t be sure. I’ll find out in the paper tomorrow or from the website (right now putting my name is results in a big ugly Microsoft Jet database error (surprise, surprise).
Being the first one on Team Dustpuppy to finish was cool, until I realized that I was the one who had to wait the longest. Eventually though the rest of the team showed up, we sat for a while and then headed home on the skytrain with about 40,000 other wet, tired people. Home, hot bath, book, etc.
Now I’m taking my sore legs to bed.