Rotary Club "SeaWalk" 10k Run Completed!!!

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So I was very much looking forward to the run this morning, because I've done a lot of training since the Sun Run and I was hoping there would be an improvement on time. I slept at my parents house last night because the starting line in West Vancouver is closer to their house so I thought I'd be able to get more sleep, however because I was not in my own bed so it didn't quite workout the way I'd hoped. It also may not have helped that my Dad suggested we watch "Running Scared" right before I went to sleep, I hesitantly agreed, which by the way was the most bizarre and disturbing movie I've ever seen and also contributed to keeping me awake. In any case I woke up at 5:45am, sluggishly rolled out of bed and got all ready to go:

I arrived at Park Royal about 10 minutes before the start of the race, the weather was okay, it wasn't raining which was a blessing:
We started promptly at 7:30am, the first part of the run was strange as it was a loop through the park royal parking lot (not very inspirational...), we continued on to the beach trails. The first 5k were pretty tough, I could feel the effects of no sleep, but then I saw the Dundarave Pier which meant I was halfway, that felt nice and I knew my Dad was waiting for me to take a picture:
I continued on, my knees were getting sore but at this point I'd passed the halfway mark and I knew I could make it the rest of the way. I decide to walk for about 30s and stretch out my ankles, after this I got my 2nd wind and I was on my way again. Then I saw the 7k marker and Kanye West's "Stronger" pushed me to run a little faster and a surprise guest was waiting for me at the next water station -- DAD! with the camera again:
At this point I knew that if I wanted to beat my Sun Run time I had to push through the last 2.5k, I tried to pick up the pace. "You Make my Dreams" by Hall & Oates was blasting on my iPhone, which kind of made me want to start dancing but I had to focus!

As a side note, I bought new headphones this past week before the race which was apparently a bad idea cause they kept falling out and I really wanted to just throw them in the ocean, haha.

Finally I came up around the bend underneath the Lions Gate Bridge and into the parking lot at Park Royal, I knew this was the last stretch. I put everything I had into it and sprinted it out to the finish line -->

Woohoo! I did it! I beat my Sun Run time by a couple of minutes, I wonder how I would have done with a full nights sleep?!? I hear another 10k race coming on...
Thanks Dad for taking all the photos and following me along the way! It gave me that much more energy to see you along the way :)