I DID IT!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all who were praying for me and thinking about me yesterday during the Sun Run. I know that it helped. My friend Carmen and I discussed the night before what time we thought we should leave in the morning. I had never done the Sun Run before and had heard about how bad traffic could be and all the people, so I asked Carmen if we had to leave by 5:30 or 6:00 am (yes, that's in the morning) and she politely said, "Uhmm, I think if we leave by 6:30 we should be fine." "Ok," I thought, "she's done the run before, so she knows what she's doing." Did I believe her? Somewhat. So, she picked me up at 6:30 like planned and I iced my shin splints all the way into Vancouver which turned out to be a really good idea. Lately I've been having really bad shin splints and it takes about 10 - 15 minutes for them to stop hurting after I start my run. I also took 2 Ibuprofen to deal with my aching back because usually when my shins stop hurting, my back ache kicks in and continues my entire run. Wow, I sound really old. Maybe the geriatric pets I'm always hanging out with are starting to rub off on me. Anyways, by the time we parked and walked over to the starting line it was 8:00, and this is what we found.So, not such a need to be there too early after all (sorry, Carmen!). We were in the white section and as you can see, there wasn't much activity going on, so we took one last trip to this fine establishment below ... And then headed into our section. I must admit that I was a little nervous. Why? We're just going for a run. No big deal. I've gone for LOTS of runs before. Why so nervous for this one? Ok, it was my first time being timed running 10 km and also because it was a personal goal I'd set for myself 13 weeks ago and had trained quite hard and been quite disciplined at (if I do say so myself), so it was a bit nerve wracking wondering how it would all turn out.

As Carmen and I sat on the curb waiting for the time to pass, more and more people showed up. I don't know how well you can see in this next picture, but the people in the yellow and blue shirts ... ARE KIDS!!! Yes, KIDS! In my section which meant they said they could run 10 km in about the same amount of time as I could. WHAT? How could this be? I told Carmen that I had to remind myself that this was a competition against myself, not against a bunch of 11 year olds. Call me shallow, but it was a bit of a hard pill to swallow. In the end I was honestly happy for them and proud of them for being out there. Really, I was. :)

These were the chips we had to wear on our shoes that calculated our time. I was so nervous that mine was going to fall off and then the officials would have no way of telling how I did. I even looked down on our last turn and thought it had fallen off. My heart did quite the jump, but alas, it was still there.

We got off the curb at about 8:15 and decided it was getting quite full so we wanted to stand up so we were near the front of our group. There were only 2 groups in front of us. They had yellow or green numbers on. This made me nervous again because the gun wasn't going to go off until 9;00, and usually standing more than 15 minutes in a row does a real number on my back, but yesterday, I didn't feel a thing. Again, thank you for your prayers. Here we are getting ready to take our marks ... ok, stand in a big group.

This was the scene in front of us. You can see the green balloons, then the yellow balloons and just in front of that is the start line. Doesn't look too far away, does it? I totally thought it would take us about 10 minutes after the gun went off to get to the start line. Boy was I wrong.

This was the view behind us at about 9:15.

We then proceeded to wait until 9:28 until we started to move ... about 10 feet .. and then we stopped again. We didn't cross the start line until 9:40. Yes, that's right. We had been standing there for 1 hour and 25 minutes before we started running and my back STILL wasn't hurting. Carmen and I both decided on a slow pace to start off with so that we didn't burn ourselves out right away. It was very exciting as there were people all over the streets of Vancouver cheering us on even though they didn't know us. Just before we entered Stanley Park, we passed this apartment building and there were two girls outside (maybe 8 and 10 years old) and they made up this tune and they were singing to us, "You can do it! We know you can!" They were so cute and it actually did totally encourage me. At the 3 km mark I was feeling really good and then the U2/Greenday song, "The Saints Are Coming" came on my iPod and gave me an extra boost (I actually hit replay on that one). At about the 5 km mark I was a little worried because I was feeling really great and was wondering when I would hit the wall or when something would start hurting, but it didn't. My friend, Lori had mentioned that the air quality is better in Vancouver so it might make it easier to run and I think she's right. I had never felt this good. I missed the 6 km and 7 km marks, so I was really looking forward to seeing what the next marks were and was happy to see 8 km. Only 2 km to go!

One of my favorite things during the race was getting the water from the sidelines, taking a drink, crunching up the cup and throwing it on the ground. I don't know why I liked it so much, but it made me smile every time I did it. I guess you see them do it on TV all the time, so it made it feel real to me.

By this time Carmen and I had kept the same pace and we were still together, so that was nice. We rounded the second last turn onto the Cambie Street bridge and saw the 9 km mark. My muscles didn't love the fact that to get onto the bridge it was a slight hill, but I managed. At this point we could see BC place and it's all you can do to hold yourself back from really letting go because you still have a whole km left, so about half way across the bridge as we're coming through the last turn, we started kicking it into high gear (which is hard to do because there are a LOT of people around still either walking or lolly-gagging their way towards the finish line). We crossed the finish line together and did the old high five! Whoo Hoo! We did it and it felt GREAT!!! I did get a little misty eyed, but don't tell anyone, ok?

We then proceeded into BC place to get oranges, water, yogurt and get a bunch of handouts for upcoming runs. I think it would be a good idea for me to sign up for one right now so that I keep up with the running. This is me inside BC place and in case you're wondering, yes, my face CAN get even redder than that (hard to believe, but it can).

This was us after our cool down inside BC place just on the other side of the finish line. Thanks for doing this with me, Carmen. It was a pleasure to run with you. And thanks to Bren, Karen, Natasha and Lori for coming down to cheer us on. How about we all do it next year, ladies?

So, did I meet my goals? What was my time? Well, yes, I met both of my goals. I ran the whole way and didn't stop to walk and my time was under 1 hour 10 minutes. When I remembered to stop my watch after we crossed the finish line, it said this ...

But when I looked in the paper this morning, it said this ...

Either way, I'm incredibly happy with my time and so happy that I met this goal in my life. Some people have said, "So, now a half marathon?" Don't even go there. Maybe one day, but not in the near future I don't think. Maybe a few more 10 kms and we'll see after that. All I can say is that I'm happy the Run was yesterday and not today because it's been pouring outside all day. My body is only mildly sore today, so I think that's good. Thanks again for your well wishes and your prayers. I'm a bit sad because now both of my countdowns are gone and if you know me, you know I love countdowns. Think it's too early to start a countdown for Christmas? haha Just kidding.