LORDY, LORDY, TURNING 40

COMMUNITY OF DOERS SHOWED UP FOR 40TH ANNIVERSARY 10K RUN

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Watching everyone else participate in a community event was the best result for me.

The 10 kilometre fun run began last year about this time when all those participants and wannabes put their mind around competing in or doing better than the previous participation.

The 45,517 registered participants for the 2024 run all woke up Sunday morning together, bright and early to find that ‘lordy, lordy’ the Vancouver Sun Run had turned 40 on April 21 at 8:50 am with three wheelchair athletes being the first to leave the start line.

Then 10 minutes later, the elites, and then thereafter for the next hour or so, wave upon wave of runners from all levels and all ages, including many walkers, and several parents with baby strollers of the same categories just wanting to participate in this grand community event.

I feel for you, really I do, with all those missed days training, especially in the winter on those dark rainy, cold days that make leaving the abode for an evening on the hard unforgiving sidewalks a miserable prospect.

Standing on the sidelines less than 100 metres from the start line on West Georgia Street, I also considered the summer heat, so easy to just sit by the air conditioner or do something less exhausting with those thick waves of wet heat, like watching swimming on television, than tying those brand-expensive runners and opening the door to an evening of endorphin highs and lows.

Then there is that runner’s diet. Less sugar always helps, but sugar is in so many things even when that ice cream in the freezer empties, and that supersize fountain drink is just too far away now, in a crowded city with a lot of congestion, even by car.

I feel for you, I really do.

My youth came flashing back to me at times while watching everyone run, jog and walk by on Denman Street. I had been a long distance runner until I gave up those lonely training runs at night for public school sports, like basketball. I really liked basketball, but I soon found my height, after I stopped growing at 5 foot 10 inches, to be a barrier. I liked the speed of the fast break and the intensity of a full court press.

But running and jogging are perhaps the more difficult of options, even as a recreational activity, than cycling, and more tiring than snowboarding. I don’t blame those people for walking. I am not sure my knees could handle the pavement either after snowboarding this past winter and smacking both knees hard against the glacier-like ice that had formed.

I can barely cycle this early in the cycling season – with a first ride usually scheduled for warmer mornings in May.

But even the walkers showed tremendous courage just to assemble on West Georgia Street for such an early start – the morning coffee still dripping down into the pot after leaving home for the crowded streets of Downtown Vancouver.

The 10k fun run was well organized chaos dispatched in waves only to bottle neck early as the runners turned the corner off of West Georgia, at Stanley Park, and onto Denman Street, and then again onto Beach Avenue or I mean Pacific.

The wait appeared to be excruciating long for hitting the 1 km mark on West Georgia, and then where was that 2 km marker, with many participants not quite there yet. And so, people took a break to line up for the porta potties before heading forward ever after toward the 10 km finish line at the hockey arena.

My word, what a day people were having. Well, done! Bravo!