Tag Archives: Sun Run

Tribute to Nurses

Cathedral Place Office towersThe Vancouver Medical Dental Building was built in 1929. On about the tenth floor there were constructed 11 foot high terra cotta statues of the Nursing Sisters, a tribute to the nurses of the First World War.

Art Deco tribute to World War 1 nurses.The story goes that one of the architects who designed the building was wounded in the war, and he credited the Sisters with saving his life. This was his way to pay his respects.

They could not be salvaged when the building was demolished, but replicas now reside on the Crystal Place office building, on the corner of Georgia and Howe, but down at the 3rd floor level, where they are clearly more visible! When we were waiting for the Sun Run to start, we took a couple pictures of her – and so – here she is! Really pretty cool.

The mind wanders

Canucks LogoStream of consciousness post this evening… We’ve had time to reflect on the Vancouver Canucks four game sweep of the St. Louis Blues and people got more than just a little carried away! They were out blocking intersections, and honking horns and fighting – and finally a cop got his leg broken. I mean, come on people! It’s the first round, we’ve won nothing.

Not that I’m not glad we won! Sure, I’m excited, but there are three more rounds to go. No point in getting carried away over nothing.

Tulips bloomWhat happened to spring? Usually the cherry tree in the backyard has finished blooming already. So far, it’s not giving much sign of anything. If this is happening to our usually very productive tree, how are things going with farmers? I sense that food is going to be pricey this summer, rather than cheaper.

The early tulips we got in February are toast; they grew four or five inches then got snowed on, and they never recovered. The ones that were later coming up are finally giving a bit of a show.

Max had some dental work done this week, and had his nails clipped. He’s not great with strangers to say the least! When my folks stayed for a few days last week, he barked at them each morning. sigh. Not behaviour we want – I wish I knew what he felt… how can these people in the house be a threat? They’ve been there all day, all night…

I’m confused. He’s such a goofy friendly guy in general. It’s just this stress of seeing some one new sets him barking.

My official Sun Run time was 1:13:35. Darned slow I know, but I see in retrospect that I needed to train differently than I did. I’ll do better next year. It’s fun to be running again, especially now that it’s finally warming up. Although it wasn’t really very warm this morning!

(So what did happen to spring? Isn’t this the time of year it gets warmer?)

Thought for the Day: If I can remember when an application was for employment, a program was a TV show, a hard drive was a long road trip, and a keyboard was an electronic piano, does that make me old?

Sun Run Sunday

Sun Run, 2009Today was the Sun Run. It’s quite an event, the 2nd largest in the world. As one of the winners said, “Oh I’ll be back – watching 50,000 people run is inspirational!” There were actually 55,858 people who ran, walked or rolled the 10k course through the streets of Vancouver.

Before the startI’ve run in the Sun Run before, but the last time I ran it (2000), there were 40,000 runners, and we ran through Stanley Park for the most part. This course was quite a bit different, never entering Stanley Park at all. There were two tough bridges to ascend, but for the most part the run was flat and level.

Facing away from the start lineNot that that helped me! But at least I made it through. But it was a tough go… if it had been an 8k, I’d have been fine. If I’m philosophical about it, I haven’t run for 8 years, and I’ve only been training for 3 months, so can’t expect much. Excuses, excuses, I just didn’t have it this time. Ah well. I’ll be out running on Tuesday with Max, and we’ll have a fine time.

Cambie BridgeThe most amazing thing was to see the MASS of people! Really amazing – you come around the corner onto 4th and there are two kilometres of 4 lane street absolutely solid with people running – absolutely solid. Pam described it as a wall of people moving,  when she saw us coming over the Cambie Street Bridge – and it really was something to see.

Lots of people run it in costumes, but I saw a very inspirational saying on one ladies shirt. It said, “Living proof that organ donation works. Thanks to…” and she named the people who I assume saved her life. Wonderful.

Truly an amazing experience. Sometimes the running is tough (move over to the right BEFORE you start walking please!) and you have to dodge around people who are slower, but it is a FUN RUN. And the inspiration on the way from people lining the route, giving you applause and words of encouragement, that really helps too. When you’re struggling they inspire you to get back into pace cuz hey, they came to see runners, so give ’em a show!

Tons of runners carry cameras, so there must be a lot pictures of the race around. Here is a link to the Vancouver Sun’s gallery.