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.