My first race of 2012 is complete (at 23 weeks pregnant). I ran the Vancouver Sun Run on Sunday (a 10K race that attracts nearly 50,000 participants) and it was a fun and interesting experience. When I registered for the run I was already pregnant and had to submit an estimated finishing time. I was conservative and submitted a time of 1:40. I am happy to report I finished in a time of 1:18! I was skeptical of the reading on my Garmin but my official time on the Sun Run site is an exact match.
During the race I didn’t pay attention to my how fast or slow I was going and just ran a comfortable pace – considering the vast number of people in the run it was a good thing I didn’t focus on my Garmin because I had to make sure I didn’t run into any of the walkers (who obviously missed the multiple signs along the route asking them to stay to the right).
This was taken from the purple corral. There was one group behind us. The start line is far in the distance. That, my friends is what they call a lot of people.
The official start time of the Sun Run was 9 am. My heat didn’t get across the start line until almost 10 am. This was over half an hour after the first place male crossed the finish line (in 29 minutes!). In hindsight we left too early and I spent too much time standing around. Thankfully Julie stuck around to keep me company and found me a bathroom before I started running. At first I thought I would just wait until I arrived at the first bathroom stop along the route but I’m very happy I didn’t. The line up was huge and would have added on an additional 45 minutes to my finish time if I had stopped. I decided to suck it up and focused on avoiding people instead of thinking about peeing. The funny thing is I didn’t pee until almost an hour after the race ended. Mind over matter.
Remember my last post where I said I was going to wear my Asics? Yea, I don’t know if it was the matching race bib colour or what but I decided to go ahead and wear my Sauconys. Thankfully it all worked out wonderfully. I guess I was correct, writing about something is one way to make the opposite happen 
There were performers all along the route and my favourite was the group of Native drummers who kept chanting “You are awesome. You’re so awesome. If you were any more awesome you would be triple awesome!” as the runners ran by. It definitely made me smile.
Overall I had a good experience and am happy I decided to enter the Sun Run. I ran the whole way and it was nice to run a different route with people instead of my usual route solo.
The best part about the race was at the end when I felt like I could run another 10K, because in a few short weeks that’s what I’ll be doing.
