It’s all over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As I type this on my laptop, sitting in the passenger seat of Heidi’s car, I feel a certain sense of accomplishment. I also feel every single piece of muscle in my body screaming at me saying “You’re fucking stupid, if you ever do this again I am going to smack you in the head”. If there was ever going to be a time that Murrphy’s Law was going to make its presence known, this has been it. Ever since that fateful time after my 13km training run, it was all down hill from there.

Friday night was a good night, however the trip north had a false start as we had to go back to my place to pick up some candy that had to go north to Canada (I sure hope those pineapple lumps are tasty Roy!). That should of been the first sign that things were not going to go “as planned”. The weather was fairly rotten up north, the border crossing was as usual, horrible. The border agent just had a bug up his ass and wanted me to say the words “Work Visa” and kept being a douche about it. But the arrival at the hotel and check in was fantastic and by the time we headed out towards the city for dinner we were happy!

Saturday started off fairly ok, I managed to take some photos of a Air Canada Rouge A319 which is what I was searching for (still didnt get my Westjet Q400 but theres still time) but when we were heading down towards breakfast on Broadway, I realised I had forgotten the pineapple lumps…. again. Back to the airport, back to the car, then back to broadway. I am stupid, I know But we had a good lunch with Roy and explored Granville Island and then headed over to the Expo to score some free stuff and pick up my race kit (I now have more power bars than I know what to do with).

Saturday night was meant to be quiet, it was meant to be relaxed. After some carbo loading we were meant to relax in the spa and just have a nice quiet night in…. yeah didnt happen. We waited almost an hour for our take out order to appear *sigh* and by that stage I was tired, hungry, cranky and ready for sleep. I was not a happy chappy. But dinner was pretty good (not really worth the wait though) and I got to have a wagon wheel (or at least the Canadian equivalnet).

Sunday morning was full on pouring down rain. Several times I contemplated sleeping in….. Several times!!! But the ever convincing girlfriend kept me on track and dropped me off to make sure that I got to the race start on time. The race went pretty well and although I didn’t run the whole thing it went better than expected. The rain came down about 90% of the time and it was hard trying to dodge people and giant puddles full of water. When my shoes got full of water, I stopped caring, I just took it as it came. Although I didn’t see Heidi till the final stretch (our timings were off) there was plenty of other people to support me while I was out running. I did like the Tinder support team (around the halfway mark). A few very pretty ladies, some really good pumping music and best of all, a little bit of a a boost to my energy.

I was one of those people that had to make a potty break during the run, which I didn’t want to do at all but it just ended up that way and although it slowed me down, it wasn’t by all that much. The last half of the race was my hardest. My calves were burning, my knees were shot but my injury wasn’t a hassle at all. However the rest of me just didn’t want to give up. I walked a little, ran for a bit, walked some more. I was trying to run for a bit when we hit the hill in Stanley Park near the Rose Garden… yep.. I walked… so kill me 😛 I did walk about a good kilometer and a half at the end of the race, but I was determined to run the last full kilometer (ended up running about the last 1.25km). I saw Heidi on the final turn, ran off the course to kiss her and kept goinng. Best inspiration ever!

I crossed the line in 2h 35m and I am thoroughly happy with that time. When I had set my goals originally I was expecting to run the full half marathon, start to finish. I was aiming for 2.5 hours for that. When I injured myself I decided to revise that to 3 hours. Even then I figured it would be closer to 3 than anything else. Although I was pacing with the 2.5 hour group for part of the way, I kept up to them but they overtook me after the potty break and I never saw them again after that.

I am proud of myself for not giving up and pushing through the injury to get this done. But I know that Heidi will probably kick me in the head if I say I want to do it again. This race has been the hardest thing I have done since I moved to the USA. It could possibly be the hardest thing I have done ever. The weight loss felt a lot easier than this, Kokoda felt considerably easier, This morning I could have given up so many times and just stopped & walked to the nearest Tim Hortons for a coffee (tempted to as well considering they are on almost ever corner in Downtown Vancouver) but I didn’t, I stuck with it. I know a few people are proud of me for keeping at it, but I know I could have done better.

I wont say I will ever run a Half Marathon again, no matter what others think, it just isn’t me. I will stick to my 5ks and 10ks for a good race event push. Till I have to stop running outright the least I can do is just keep on pushing.. right?

PS if you have some good pain killers, I could do with some right now 😉