Sister-In-Law Vancouver Sun Run

This past weekend I ran my first ever!!! race – the Vancouver Sun Run. It’s a big tradition for Vancouver, being Canada’s largest road race.

At the beginning of the year my sister in law Tara asked if I wanted to run it with our other sister in law Val (to-be!) and my other soon-to-be sister in law Erin (Adam’s sister). I’ve never ran any races, but have run on my own before on and off – as in, I’ll get into a rhythm of running, then stop for a month or two. So when I purchased my entry fee I knew I had to actually run and not stop practicing. 

I was excited to be a part of it, having never done anything that big before – there were approximately 40,000 participants in the Sun Run this year. It’s definitely fun once you’re down there, lots of people walking around all the closed streets. It’s pretty awesome to be running in downtown Vancouver, and then run over two main bridges, the Burrard St Bride and the Cambie St. Bridge – Although going up the bridge was a whole different story. Actually, the ascend to the first bridge was a struggle haha, as I usually run on pretty flat areas. I joked with Tara that she had to push me up the hill (which she almost did 😉 )

We woke up at 6am to have breakfast and head downtown via the sky train. The race has waves of starts, with the elites first. We were down there early to check a bag for the courier at the end of the race, so we ended up waiting around for a while. Our wave didn’t leave til about 9:30, so it was a good three and a half hours of waiting before actually running.

Having never run a race, and starting with a 10k (almost an 11 when you add in the hills etc) i’m pretty happy with myself. We ran it in  about an hour 10 minutes. There are so many people running that you do a lot of people dodging – and we all wanted to stick together – it wasn’t a real ‘race’ – more for fun. 

The only downside was after the race we went to have lunch, and when i got home later that day i felt quite sick, and ended up with food poisoning – not so good. I’m just happy it was after the race, and not before. I’ve only had food poisoning a couple of times before and it sucks. needless to say i was in bed most of sunday and all of monday, having to stay home from work. thankfully i felt better enough to eat some plain white toast and broth monday night after not being able to keep anything down whatsoever sunday night/monday morning. i went to work today, still not feeling 100% but felt that i had better go in. moral of the story – stick to post-race celebratory drinks, not green salads + chicken. 

it was a great weekend – and i’d definitely do the Vancouver Sun Run again!

yup – we even had matching jackets

post race!