May 6, 2007

Rain + Cold = Fast


Event Stats:
Name Vancouver Marathon
Date 05/06/2007
Location Vancouver, BC, CA
Event Marathon
Finish Time 03:50:41

Not only is Vancouver one of the Top 5 cities in the world (European Flair, American convenience, and where else can you see both the Pacific and snow-covered mountains?), it also has a great marathon.

Although the weather was nice on the Saturday, which was great for sightseeing, race Sunday was cold with a drizzling rain. Public transportation worked great to get me to the start in time, and I positioned myself somewhere in the 4:00 field.

The gun went off, I took it easy in the first half, relying on the Nuun in my camel-back and a couple of gels.

Halfway point was right in the middle of lovely Stanley park, which gave some shielding from the rain, but at the prize of a rather tiring uphill stretch.

Scenery-wise, the second part of the run was a bit of a let-down, running through mainly residential areas is not that great. I still felt strong, even picked up the pace a little. At mile 22 I realized that I would break (for the first time) the 4:00 mark, so I ran even faster.

I finished in 3:50:41, beating my old PR by over 20 minutes, which is even more astonishing considering that I had run 80 km, 50 km and 60 km on the three weekends before. So much for tapering.

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