This was pretty much just a long training run for me so a race report seems a bit much, however it does call for some stream of conciousness.
This was a small race, just 227 participants. It was well organized, but rather pricy ($79 early bird) considering there was no shirt just an Icebreaker beanie but I would certainly consider doing it again.
They had to change the route a bit this year due to construction at Park Royal mall, I'm pretty sure that the route from last year was dead flat or I probably would have thought twice about signing up for it. This year there was an irritating hill thrown in right at the start, nothing for the North Shore runners but not what this flat lander was looking for.
The start was a bit ridiculous, "ok we're going to run around the parking lot for a while, past the stop sign, oops, left at the next stop sign (try not to trip over anyone going around the corner), turn right past Shoppers Drugstore, ooh a straight stretch, ok right at Zara's and right again, wait we're heading back to the start line (this seems short for a half marathon
), oh yeah, head up the ramp into the parkade 
, run across level two of the parkadge to get across Marine Drive, down the ramp, through the parking lot and woohoo we're on the road. Oh crap, now we have to run up 11th, whose bright idea was this - I could run this but that guy's walking and that seems like a really good idea. Walk the rest of the block and right turn onto Keith - running again up a long gradual rise. Hey that woman was ahead of me before I started walking - ok - no time lost really. All right, we're at the top and now it's down hill, right again onto Taylor Way ... and we're heading back onto the parkade - quick left onto the overpass over Taylor Way, left onto the sidewalk, hop over the curb and 180 onto the sidewalk heading down the hill, left turn and we're on a bike path. Around a corner, up the bike path to the bridge, over the river, and now follow the bike path down away from Marine Drive and under the bridge we just ran over. I think we've almost made it to where I thought this race would start. Wait, why are we running over Lion's Gate Bridge ?!? - oh ok another bike path and finally we have made it to the start of the Spirit Trail and now it's just straight running for a really long time.Just past 5k, we started to see the first front runners on their way back (the turn around point was just before 8km), this part was a nice wide paved bike path. I spent my time hopscotching with the same women - there was one group of three who I was sure were in my age group but they were just a bit too quick for me to catch. The return trip felt good and went quick, 11.5k we made it back to the Lions Gate Bridge and headed onto the other out and back section along Ambleside and Dunderave. At this point it was getting to be 8:30am so there were more folks out strolling and walking their dogs. The stretch through the doggy park at Ambleside is most of the reason I signed up for the race. We got to see a few happy puppies and luckily they were all used to runners so were well behaved. Just as we turned onto the Ambleside path we saw the lead runner heading for the finish. Counting down the km markers now, and out of Ambleside, through the parking lot to join up with the Dunderave Seawall. Usually when there are races on, you see a lot of irritated drivers, today - just as we hit the seawall, these two women out for a stroll wandered onto the seawall as well. One woman was especially cranky, she tried to head to the right side to get out of the way of the runners heading out the path and then realized she was going to be run over by the runners heading back. "Well, why don't they just take over both sides of the path then?
" Other than that woman, there was room for everyone.And finally, the last turnaround at 16km, just have to try not to die in the last 5km, the return route was along a bike path I've never taken before, very pretty!, back to the doggy park, up the path, turn left and we're back in the parking lot and on the last km. Around a couple more corners and yay, it's over.
Final time 2:02:09 - I actually managed a small negative split. Since this was a North Shore run, that put me pretty much at the bottom of the heap for 50-59 women (11/14), there were four of them just two minutes ahead of me but on this day that might as well have been an hour. Overall a good race and a nice event.
There was a Sport physio company out giving massages which was fabulous, thanks to their ministrations, I will be able to walk tomorrow.
. Great job on an interesting route!