April 16^th, 2007

Once again, yesterday my wife and I visited that ungodly and unnatural act of violence upon ourselves known as running the Vancouver Sun Run marathon. And we got up at an evil hour to do it, too.

Now, this is not one of those no-brain-no-pain huge day-long marathons. It is, in fact, a 1/4 marathon—10 Kilometres, or a titch under 6 miles. Those folks who go for daily 10K runs would scoff at the significance I place on such a "little" piece of exercise. But for me, a reformed 17-year smoker who has been locked in mortal combat with feeling overweight since ... well, since forever, actually, this was something of an achievement.

The best part of all of it, though, is that my wife and I shaved 10% off our times from last year. That's a significant improvement that has left the both of us really primed with satisfaction. We walked around yesterday (and hobble around today) glowing with a sense of pride about our accomplishment. We felt so pleased afterwards.

I can't speak any more for my wife than that, but my own sense of accomplishment is derived not just from the run yesterday, but from the fact that we practiced running further and faster about 3 times a week for 13 weeks leading up to the run. I mean, we actually trained for it. It takes discipline to go running in the cold rain, sleet, and even a couple of times in the snow ... and neither of us really harped on the other to get going. We did it together, but not in competition or over-encouragement. Harmoniously, so to speak :-)

And the results came yesterday, and we feel so happy about it today.

Here are some notes about the Sun Run more-or-less randomly presented, and just as they occurred to me:

• I already wrote about it last year. But this year, the gripes were a lot less. My wife and I talked about it and we think it is because we knew a lot better what to expect. We anticipated the things that would irritate us.

• We signed up to start in a group that claimed to be faster than we were, so that we wouldn't have to waste a ton of energy running sideways to avoid, or plowing through lollygaggers (groups of friends who wanted to all walk abreast of each other, sometimes as many as six) who were completely blocking the route.

• The music and announcements while we stood around waiting our turn to start seemed a lot less irritating. The announcer didn't announce the band's name every 30 seconds this year, like he seemed to last year.

• The bands sounded better to my ears this year. They consisted of real live people playing music to the best of their abilities, with one huge glaring exception: There was a stand set up by one of the local radio stations (a hip-hop and pop station) with moronic urban "gangstas" standing in their sunglasses and ridiculous loose floppy clothes while someone scratched up his old record collection to loud music pumped out of the sound system. They looked hilariously out of place—I mean, really really stupid just standing there—while a bunch of people reaching Kilometre Seven sweated and grunted past them. Complete clash of the "cultures". Also, what skill is there, really, in scratching records like that? I know a lot of effort goes into it, but it's really just a bit of complicated percussion ... and not too many people would agree that it's artistic or particularly inspired. And standing there trying to look bad-ass while people barely notice you as they run past requires no skill at all. At least the live bands were making an effort to do something skillfully.

• Well-wishers continue to amaze and delight me. I know, as a friend said, that some are probably just looking for a specific runner, but even if they were ... no, especially since they were, it was really deeply appreciated that they clapped and cheered and said encouraging and friendly things to us as we passed by. It's hard to remain an anti-social curmudgeon for long when complete strangers voice encouragement to me.

• The weather was great for it. Not too cold (except maybe at 8:30 in the morning while we stood around and waited), but not too hot so that we didn't overheat when the marathon started. The sun came out occasionally, but there were enough clouds to keep us shielded.

• Did I mention that we reduced our running time by 10%? :-)

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