The Drummond News

Here she is

Maggie

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Check out Amy. Maggie's page is still under construction.

Reasons to move to BC - the Sun Run

The Sun Run was sooo fun. Definitely a good enough reason to move to the Lower Mainland. The photo on the linked site above doesn't really do justice to the length of the starting line - it looks a bit compressed lengthwise. It was actually five city blocks full of people waiting to start the race. The competitive wheelchair racers took off first, at 8:45 am. Then the competive racers at 9. The rest of us started in waves, a block full of people at a time. The winner finished in 28 minutes, before I even started. (He wore bib number 4. I wore bib number 20,996.) I started at about 9:44. Some walkers from our training group said that they started at 10:28. The last people to cross the start line did so at about 11:00. Thank goodness for the good weather.

I finished 28,395th, with a time of 88:56. Not bad, considering I walked for 3 out of the 10 kilometres of the race.

I figured I'd be happy to run 5K, then walk the rest of the course. I managed to run 4K, then I walked for the 5th and 6th kms, ran the 7th, walked the 8th, and ran the last 2 km of the course. So I didn't quite make 5 in a row, but 7 in total felt pretty good. And considering I took just under 40 minutes to do 5K in the run for the cure, I think I must have at least gained some speed during my training.

I was kind of glad to walk a bit in the middle, since it gave me a chance to look around and just watch the other participants. There were families walking and running together ("Stay with us, Jason!"), and people making deals about how much they had to run ("How about we run up to 6K and then walk for another kilometre?"), and people in funny costumes, trying to get their pictures taken - I saw one guy running in a full football uniform, helmet and all. It was a beautiful sunny day and I walked along English Bay and over the Burrard Street bridge.

I'm so glad I was able to participate, and I would definitely do it again. Next year I need to stay healthy so I can run the whole way.

Sidelined

I've been sidelined by a nasty cough, and forbidden from running for another 8 days. I blame my dad, who was coughing in Alberta. Okay, it's not entirely his fault. I did pick up the cough from him (started coughing on the plane home), but it's turned into a bacterial infection. I'm on antibiotics, and when I asked could I run, I was told not for 10 days, and I risk pneumonia if I try it before then.

The Sun Run is my first allowable running day after 10 days of no running. And about 10 days before the ban. So 3 weeks of not running, followed by a 10K? I'm thinking not. I may just walk it, or I may run a bit and walk the rest. Of course, at this point I'm still coughing, so the ban may be extended if those antibiotics don't kick in soon.

It may all be a moot point, because my manager at work is talking about having us work both days next weekend in order to be able to finish up our T1 tax pool on time. We still have quite a large number of tax returns not even received yet, and only 10 work days remaining before the end of the month. In fact, I'm writing this up at work - taking a short break from what will be a full day in the office today. If I'm asked to work next weekend I can't very well say no, I'm in the Sun Run, when all my other colleagues will be here.

Okay, back to those tax returns. One more from this big family and on to a new client.

Reasons to move to BC - number 1 in a series

Well, duh - mountains.