Cindy Elder:
Got up at 6:15 to head to the West Van Run, only to find that it had snowed at least 4" overnight. My spirits dropped thinking I wouldn't be able to achieve my goal of running a 1:00:00. The closer we got to West Van the less snow there was, things were looking up. It was still not nice weather, cold and rainy/snowy but not much snow left on the ground just slush.
The race started pretty similar to most other races, except this one combined both 5 and 10 km runners, a slow start and a lot of darting and dodging other runners to get to open space to and get settled on my run pace. The run was scenic right from the start line. I had to stop and take a picture of the park as I thought that my grandson would love playing there. I then carried on running down back roads, thru a few trails, onto a parking lot and back to the seawall. The view of the Lions Gate Bridge and the ships in the harbour were spectacular even on a blustery day. As I neared the finish, I could hear friends cheering me on. I loved hearing the runners names announced as they crossed the finish line.
I fun race and I would run it again! Oh, and I PB'd with a 59:55!
Twitter: @cid1958
Jacki Amato:
West Van Run March 3, 2014
Spring was here a month ago, things were looking up in
regards to the temperature being warm for the race on Sunday. But over the past
two weekend’s winter decided to give us Wet Coasters a little dusting of snow.
The West Van Run was my first official race of the 2014, it
was a perfect race to run as I am heading to LA Marathon next weekend.
Headed to West Van for the race with Krista and her mother
in-law Cindy. Wasn’t sure what to expect with the weather on the North Shore,
but we were very lucky as it was only raining and not snowing.
The location was beautiful on the Sea Wall in West
Vancouver, looking out and over the inlet. Cindy and I lined up at the start
line, we realized that both the 5 km and the 10 km races were starting at the
same time, so we tried our best to move up as we were pretty much at the back
of the crowd. The sea wall was pretty tight for running in a race with the
different speeds of runners and walkers. Both Cindy and I had our own race goals
for this race, mine was to finish strong and Cindy was to finish under an hour.
Both of us did reach our race goals.
The first kilometer was a little
busy on the sea wall as the width wasn’t very wide, but once I was able to get
past the people I was able to find my grove and run the pace I had set out to
try and run. Then around kilometer 2, 3 & 4 there was slushy portions of
the pathway, and I found it a tad slippery, so I slowed down so I wouldn’t slip
and fall. I found the last 5 kilometers
of the race really nice. It did loop back twice which can make it tough when a
run is further in distance. It only bothered me slightly on the second time it
happen, I was doing so well in my mind at this point, I hadn’t taken a walk
break and then the lovely volunteer pointed me in the direction in which I
suppose to go. I felt a little bit of my heart breaking as I knew the finish
line was in the opposite direction. It surely was a great distraction as the
loop back went rather quickly and the one saving grace to these loop backs is
seeing your running friends and cheering for them as they go by, whether they
are in front of you or behind, you get to see them and cheer for them, scream
their names and wish them a quick sentence of encouragement. In this case Cindy and I were able to see
each other a couple of times (she was ahead of me) and it was really nice to
look ahead to focus on her coming up to say hello.
Good parts of the course were on
the sea wall where we ran and did the photo shoot for “I want to be West Van
Famous” which brought back some very fond memories of a very cold morning,
where I had the chance to finally meet a few of my twitter friends in person
and where I was able to gain new friendships that I know will last a life time,
it was a fun morning and very bonding in a special way.
I remember looking at my Garmin
around 8 km’s with 2 km’s to finish the race, I thought to myself (a runners
mind games) I can run a kilometer in 6 minutes plus another minute or so as I
was getting tired and I wasn’t sure if I would stop, but I came upon two very
young women running the race ahead of me, they were talking and laughing and
being very causal about the whole run. I guess I had startled one of them as
she moved to the side so I could past. Any ways for the next 1.8 km’s or so we
ran together. They continue to talk and I was just there, my pace was around a
5:42 km when I looked at my watch which I was extremely pleased with. At one
point we could see the finish line, as far away as it was by the naked eye, my
Garmin said it was around 1 km to go, which I could handle with one step at a
time. At this time I realized that I would be near to the 1 hour mark which
didn’t really phase me, I just kept going the pace with the girls beside me, at
one point I went in front of them. As we
got closer to the finish line, the girls were talking about sprinting when they
got to the corner as the corner approached they said that it was still too far
away to sprint, and they would go at the next corner. I wished them luck and
away they went, I stayed at or around the same pace. As I was getting closer to
the finish line I could hear my name being shouted out in the far distance, I
had friends at the finish line and I heard their cheers. This really helped me
pick up my pace and the first person I saw cheering was Cindy, it was really
special seeing her there and then I heard the rest of the group cheering, but I
really didn’t see them as I was focused on the finish line and I pushed myself
to the finish line and I finished with a time on my Garmin of 1:01:37.
I would have to say that the race
experience was fun and I would do it again next year, things that I would
change if I was in charge, I would have the 5km and the 10 km groups start
apart, but the more I think about it, due to the distance and the width of the
seawall this task may be a little hard to do, especially when the winner of the
5km won in a very impressive time of 18 minutes. So with Jin running such an
amazing fast time he would run into problems of runners in his path and being
the lead runner, those are not issues that make for a great run.
So as I sit here and try to think
of things that went well during the race and things that didn’t go well, I find
it very difficult as my experience was really good. The customer service in
regards to the time change of the kid’s 1km race was over and beyond, I found
out from a friend that she was given a message on their home answering machine
was well as an email alert reminder that the time had changed to 8 am. Kudos
for the extra awesome customer service.
The course was lovely and very
scenic and by the looks of it there was plenty of water (I carry my own in my
fuel belt) so I really didn’t take notice to the water station. I just remembered the one thing that I would
have like to seen on the course would have been course markers of the distance.
The bright orange arrows on the ground were good for pointing us in the right
direction, but it would have been nice to see the kilometer markers on the
course also. I like seeing those
kilometer markers on the race course every few kilometers.
Big thank you to Kirill and the
volunteers at the West Van Run of 2014, without you I wouldn’t have gotten my
confidence with my road/racing in tune prior to running a full marathon in a
week’s time, see you next year!
XOXO
Jacki Amato
Twitter: @jacki_66
Twitter: @jacki_66
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| Jacki and Cindy with the winner of the 5k race! |
Everyone did so awesome at this race and though I was sad that I wasn't able to run, I was so pleased to be there to cheer on these wonderful ladies!
Special thanks to Solana's husband for the great professional photos of Jacki & Cindy.
It was definitely a fun race and cool to see Jacki and Cindy’s take on the day! We actually did see poor Jin fighting his way through all us slow 5k’ers and felt kind of bad. Here’s hoping no foot issues for WVR 2015!
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