It was a misty wet morning in Vancouver for the marathon. After a tough swim workout, I jetted down to the course in my car. My plan was do my Sunday run backwards and cheer for folks along the course. In particular, I was looking for my Mum (doing her first half marathon) and my friend June (trying to qualify for Boston). After ditching my car, I ran over the Burrard Street bridge looking out for June. She was looking good coming up to the bridge on her way out to UBC. I could see it was a good day because she was running just a couple of minutes behind the 3:45 pace bunny.

I then ran briskly out to Stanley Park to see if I could catch my Mum. She was racewalking up a storm and so she was probably heading home under the bridge just as I headed out to the Park. You can see from the happy finish line picture that Mum and the racewalkers had a fantastic time. She was “over the moon” when I talked to her on the phone in the afternoon.

After my run out to Stanley Park, I zipped back to the Burrard Street bridge on the empty seawall. I then ran backwards on the course looking for June again (more then one person told me I was going the wrong way – and had a good chuckle). I caught up with June coming out of Kits park and ran with her back to the Burrard bridge. It was really awesome to share in her good day.

“…at the end it was all mental for me, and you came in just at the right time. [...] Boston 2008 was my dream and now I can say I am going to run Boston.” June ran 3:44, a 12min personal best – and 6 min under the Boston qualifier time that she needed. It was a good day. Especially since after all the action in the morning I went crazy and for no reason other than, “It was a good day,” I made two big lemon meringue pies. Mmm, lemon pie, yummy.

swim
w/u 200f
2 x 100m @ 30sR (500m pace – 1:40), 50easy
4 x 50m @ 15sR (50s pace), 50 easy
8 x 25m @ 5sR (25s pace), 50 easy
16 x 25m @ 5sR (-2s per 100m faster then 500m pace, 24.5s)
100f c/d

run
1:14:03
Avg HR 143, Max 166