First runs in Canada

The trip to Canada wasn't too bad in the end. I was nervous about getting on my standby flight from Sydney to San Francisco, which had been filling up fast, adn I only got to the airport an hour before it left, but I managed to get on no problem, even got an emergency exit row for me to stretch out my stumpy little legs! A couple of hours at SFO, then on another flight to Seattle, an hour there and then the final leg to Vancouver. Got to Vancouver about 22 hours after leaving home and jumped 3 buses to get to Emma's apartment - unbelievably I was still feeling damn good and in fact on fire, even with no sleep in two days.

We headed off straight away for a huge fresh crab dinner at Kelly's place and a bunch of good Canadian beer (why Sleemans Honey Brown Ale in fact) and I was feeling happy as anything to be here!

The next morning it was time to shake off the funk with a run, but I needed to wait for Sarah's flight to get in. She decided she needed to nap before doing anything (soft!) so the perfect opportunity for me to have my virgin run for this holiday. Emma lives one block from Stanley Park so it was a quick 10km right around the seawall - flat, fast and scenic, then continuing along the seawall to Granville Bridge and back for 16km total, trying to stick to marathon pace (4.15) but probably closer to 4:30s. I still couldn't get my hands on an HRM strap but I did have the footpod in action so I could run to pace.

SUNDAY
This morning I woke up at 5.30am after about 5 hours sleep and too much good wine and beer the night the before, but felt fresh and Sarah wasn't stirring so I thought a nice long run would be on the cards!

I wanted 35km and I wanted to try to stick to 5min/kms and i came close to doing both. Went around the Seawall from SEcond Beach Pool straight along to Science World, around the south bank of False Creek past Kitsilano and Jerico Beach and turning after Locarno beach - 1:32 and 17.5km from the start. Retraced my steps from there, blasting the last 10km pretty much all between 4.20 and 4.55 pace. Very nice, totally happy with that.