BMO Vancouver Half Marathon 2024

Well, my first international race is in the bag! And generally, it was a pretty good one, especially considering the way I struggled with leg pain throughout training. I'm feeling two ways about this race: happy with the outcome, and unhappy with my performance. And, at the end of the day, it left me more uncertain than ever about future race plans.

What is it about 9 miles?

Training for the Vancouver half has been going much better than the training-that-wasn't for my birthday race. Is it the better weather? The burden of the holiday season being a thing of the past? Matt's official swearing-in lifting the crushing anxiety from my shoulders? 

Oh yeah, that happened!

Who knows. Whatever the cause, training finally feels like it's going according to plan.

(Knock on wood.)

We're running a half!

 

I'm not using the royal "we". For the first time in my running journey, Matt is going to join me for a half marathon! We won't run it together since he's much faster than I am, but that's beside the point, which is that Matt's seen me run over a dozen half marathons and wasn't interested in trying himself until a firefighter buddy of his ran one in Seattle. Suddenly, his interest was piqued.