Category: Lower Mainland

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Sun Run 2006

Sun Run NumberWhat an incredible experience. The weather was great, the mass of runners were crazy, and I had a lot of fun. I walked with Rebecca to work this morning so we could pick up today’s edition of the Vancouver Sun to check out my time.

58 minutes and 26 seconds. I’m pretty happy with that. This was my first time ever running in an event like this. It seems to be pretty on par with the pace that I’m used to doing during my regular running routes. Of course, I took today off from my normal routine.

The one major complaint I have about the whole event was the waiting. The word was that access to the areas where you would be starting were going to be closed at 8:30AM, so Rebecca and I got in place around 8:20AM. I knew about the wave starts, but our group didn’t cross the start line until 9:44AM, or at least that was what my iPod told me.

I hate waiting in general, but it was the standing on the pavement that got to me. I could feel my knees getting sore and the lower portion of my back get a little stiff. It felt good to just start moving when we did start, but I didn’t feel really loose until I was around 3km in.

The route took us into the west end, through a slice of Stanley Park, up to the Barrard Street Bridge, into Kits and False Creek, and the home stretch taking us over the Cambie Street Bridge for a finish at BC Place. I parsed through the KatKam archives last night for the off chance that I could spot myself crossing the bridge. I found four pics that could be me. The one at 10:20AM seems most likely, but it’s hard to know. The clock on the KatKam could be off, and I was one of 50,000+ people.

KatKam - April 23, 2006: 9:45AMKatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:16AM
KatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:20AMKatKam - April 23, 2006: 10:40AM

The oranges and bananas they had at BC Place afterwards was awesome. With spring here and summer approaching, I think we’ll be making a better effort to stock up on fruit.

I wanna do more races like this. There seem to be a lot coming up this summer in Vancouver. We’re going through and picking some out. I might even be really brave and try a half-marathon. We’ll see.

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Running Vancouver With the Masses

Tomorrow will be my first running event of any kind.  The 10k Sun Run will go around Vancouver, and I’ll be in the group of 50,000+ making the trek.  The worst part of it is what we learned at the doctor’s office today; Rebecca has laryngitis.  She’s still going to get out there and walk it the best that she can, but I’ll be lonely without her.

I got a playlist put together on my iPod to keep me company in the meantime.  I’m excited and nervous.  It’ll be a lot of fun, but I’m unsure about what to expect.  We picked up our numbers and scoped out a place to meet up at BC Place today.

Wish us luck!

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Cut And Cover?

There is an interesting post about the Canada Line on Beyond Robson that feeds my hunger in terms of more information about the project. As with anything that is constructed in this magnitude, politics is always the story.

There is no doubt that additional SkyTrain service is going to be beneficial to the Vancouver area. I think we all agree that mass transit is a great benefit to any, major metropolitan city and its surrounding communities. What’s hard for everyone to agree upon is how it’s done, who will be responsible for it, and where the money will come from.

It is incredibly interesting that for a long time, the building of the underground portions of the Canada Line was going to be done by bored tunnel. Unless you were paying attention, the project has switched to a cut-and-cover operation, shutting down portions of Granville for approximately two years, starting at the end of April.

And you think that area was struggling for business before?

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Life Back In the Rolling Prairie

Got an IM from my brother tonight while watching the game.

Major storm damage in the Iowa City area. Anamosa got hit bad, as well, where they have called out the Red Cross… someone must have lost their home.

Iowa City Menards had a roof collapse. University Heights homes damaged. I’m sure more stories will come out by tomorrow morning.

Probably about four confirmed tornados since about 7:30ish.

It’s spring time in the midwest. A far cry from the constant rain that we’ve had in Vancouver all day long.

To tell you the truth, it’s kind of a rush. Big, rolling storms in the Iowa countryside. I kinda miss it.

Update: The Iowa City Press Citizen has a story about the big storm. Also check out their site for photos. You can also check out the Cedar Rapids Gazette Online for their coverage.

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We Goin’ to See Some of Them There Rock Shows

In every budget, you have to make room for something recreational. Rock and roll is that for Rebecca and I. And boy howdy, we have quite the calendar of events lining up for us.

South is going to be exciting. I recently heard that they had some sort of song on The O.C. some time ago, so this puts the potential turnout at the show even greater. I still have hopes that it’ll be a good show. April 20th at the Red Room on Richards.

Mates of State are coming to town on April 21st, and I picked up tickets for that last week. The Plaza Club should be an interesting place to check them out, being the last place I saw them was at Gabes back in Iowa City. Tony Pierce had an article about them on Buzznet. They will also be making an appearance at Cochella, and I’d like to be there as well. Turns out there is more to Pierce than just a crazy blogger, or at least I was impressed.

Scored tickets to Snow Patrol on June 14th at the Commodore Ballroom. It was an early bird special that we jumped on, but it’s exciting to be seeing another show there, the first and last one that I caught being Matthew Good.

Lots of rock goodness going on in this city, and this isn’t nearly half of it. I just don’t have enough time to blog about it all right now, but the point is that we have tickets to check out these shows!

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Hello, Fat Cat

Fat CatYou see some interesting things while wandering around the west end in Vancouver.

That is a fat, old cat. Probably the size of two soccer balls, and cool as can be.

I couldn’t tell if it was guarding the store or just hanging out. Either way, he never looked at us once. Just kept staring out the door.

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Coffee-grinder-aphobia

Coffee Bean MachineWe finally made it through the award winning coffee from the Clubside Breakfast Time folks this week. When you’re out, you need more.

We wandered over to Capers on Robson St. last night, thinking that we’d go for more organic stuff because we really loved the one pound of Olympia Coffee Roasting Co. beans, fair trade and organic goodness. Although, the beans were a slight issue, but I found that a blender works for grinding them. I also found that I might have ruined the blender.

Anyway, we hunted down the coffee section and found that they pretty much had only whole bean coffee, aside from one brand that we couldn’t tell much about other than it was just coffee. Dark, medium, or what? These things matter.

Finally, after a half hour of looking at various, organic brands and almost giving up to head to the grocery store to buy already ground coffee, we watched some random woman go throught the process of grinding beans with the machine in the store. After learning what we could through the corners of our eyes, we gave it a shot.

Capers Coffee GrinderLow and behold, it freaking worked! For so long I have feared making a complete idiot of myself using the in store coffee grinder, worrying that I would send beans everywhere or a big pile of grounds on the floor. That’s not to say that we didn’t have some issues, but once we actually got the machine to give us our beans, the grinding was pretty easy after that.

Vancouverites love their coffee. I’m slowly becoming one of them, but it all works out in the end. I’m getting more and more Vancouverites to love margaritas. Poncho’s ain’t half bad either.

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Can You Predict the Weather In Vancouver?

For the past few days, the forecast has been bleak and drab. The reality has been the exact opposite. Lots of sunshine and fairly warm temperatures. I’m not going to be wearing shorts and flip flops anytime soon. I’m not going to complain either.

I’ve basically come to not trust the forecasts anymore. Things can change in an instant, but that change usually sticks around for the period of a day. At least that’s what I’m starting to understand.

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I’m Signed Up For the Sun Run

Rebecca got us all hooked up for the Sun Run coming up on April 23. We’ve been doing our best to get her on a good running schedule, but her years of doing sports in high school seem to be getting her back on track pretty quickly. I am about ready to fall asleep as I write this because we were up at six this morning for a near 4km route.

For myself, it shouldn’t be too horrible, but I’m still going to train. I run about four to six days a week, alternating between long and short routes. On average, I’d say I run about 8km every day that I head out. That takes me about 30-40 minutes to complete. 10km for the Sun Run should be a nice challange, and I’ve never been in anything like this before.

I’ve found that people don’t like running with me because I either have too fast of pace or enjoy hills a little too much. I blame my brother Mike for this. He ran me into the ground when I was about to start football my sophomore year of high school, but I learned how to handle hills that way. And for those canucks out there reading this, that would be grade 10.

I’m looking forward to the Sun Run. Shortly after that, on May 26, we are looking to do the Run For Light. That’s a 4.3km course, but at night. And with glow sticks!

Time for bed now though. I’m beat. Also doing a long route tomorrow morning to keep with the training. Would like to do the Seawall as that is just over a 10km route, but we saw that they are doing construction on the side just down from Coal Harbor, from now till May. Might have to come up with a better route to train with.

Might have to try some of that music Don Deeley was talking about and see if it’s any good for keeping the pace.

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Spending Sunday in Fort Langley

Planet Java's ceilingThere isn’t a whole lot in Fort Langley, but sometimes that’s just what you need. A place where there isn’t a lot of hustle and bustle to get away from the city for a while. We were able to check it out a little more than just the drive through that I have experienced before. And if you are driving through, that doesn’t take too long.

Needless to say, it’s a small town with some character. Reminds me a lot of the small towns from where I grew up, but I think it’s a lot harder to get soy in your lattes back home than it is in Fort Langley. Even though there isn’t a Starbucks or Blenz in sight of downtown, there certainly is no shortage of coffee related establishments. You’ll have to wander past the numerous antique shops to get to them.

Autographed Tori Spelling photo at Planet JavaYou can tell that the town gets more traffic in the summer. People head out from the city to do the exact same thing that we did on Sunday. And if you do get the chance to get there, check out the little 50’s diner for a bite to eat, Planet Java 50’s Soda Fountain Café. They don’t do fries as a side to your sandwich of choice. The potato salad is just as good though, perhaps even better than the fried alternative. And it still tastes good for at least two to three hours after. How can you beat that?

And there have been movies film in this little downtown area as well. What kind of B.C. town would this be if it wasn’t used as a film set? It’s getting to the point where the game is spotting the place that has yet to be in a movie.