May 6th, 2001

Laila and I ran the Vancouver International Marathon on May 6th. We met at Sea-Tac Airport the evening of May 5th, picked up a rental car and drove to our reserved hotel room in Vancouver, arriving after midnight. The race was to start at 7 A.M. the next morning. Fortunately we had friends running the race who picked up our race packets and left them conveniently for us at our hotel. Not so pleasant was the "smoking" room we had been given. With no other rooms available we truly suffered that first night... Even the pillows reeked of smoke. Travelodge moves down in our ratings--we won't be using them in the future...

Next morning the weather was "right". Not too cold at all, so I went ahead and went singlet and shorts. A bit more cloud cover would have made it even better, but we couldn't complain with 40-ish temps and minimal wind.

At race warm-up I connected with Uli Stiefl, a German citizen, grad student at the University of Washington, and winner of last year's Vancouver marathon, as well as the Seattle, and Portland Marathon for the last two years. He has a 2:13 marathon PR. At the Seattle marathon in Nov 1999 (where I met Laila BTW) I ran with him for the first eight miles. We comunicated in German. Chance for me to practise. :-) (He was "training"--when I told him he might as well go win it, he left me and "won") Well, he remembered me right off when I approached him Sunday--"you're from Colorado right?" He had some competition this time. When I saw him coming back to the finish at an out-and-back point on the course around kilometer 35 (42 Km in a marathon) he was 100 yards behind the front two runners. By race end he had reeled them in and finished on top in 2:18.

For me this was quite the "comfortable" marathon. After running now 40 marathons, a marathon doesn't hold the same awe as it once did...It's almost like just another race. I started off just running comfortably. 25 or more runners surged out ahead, while I just relaxed. After five miles I sighted the third place female--a runner from Japan about 200 yards ahead. Slowly I reeled her in. When I went by her I said "Gambatte" (succeed), She looking spent (not good so early in the race) replied "Hai" (yes). Next in my sights was the second place female--she had "Island Runners--the Underdog" on the back of her singlet. When I pulled up alongside I asked her "what island?" thinking Queen Charlotte or Vancouver? When she replied "Poland" I did a doubletake. Poland is not an island, but well, okay, whatever. Next was the mystery entry from Ethiopia. She had entered the race at the last minute, flying in from Addis Abababa 48 hours prior. She was running strong, but I caught her just before the longest hill of the course. Well, we know about hills, don't we ICer's, particularly at sea level!

With a smattering of men along with the top three women by mile 21 I had
moved up from 18th to 11th place. Though by watch I noted that I was slowing, I still felt "just fine". I went into the marathon finish "coast mode". To mile 25 or so we had to climb up a bridge, then once at the high point of the bridge it was "all down hill". I opened it up finishing strong in 2:43:29, 11th overall and 1st in the 45-49 age group. Laila ran a comfortable 3:30 marathon.

Though we moved from the "smokey room", we stayed one more night in Vancouver. Monday we took the ferry to Vancouver Island and stayed in Victoria. There we walked around town, explored Beacon Hill Park, the Parliament buildings, and ate Chinese food in the 2nd oldest Chinatown in North America. Tuesday we took the ferry to Port Angeles, WA on the Olympic Peninsula. Driving through Forks, WA (big logging town) we came to the Hoh River valley, where we entered the Olympic National Park. I had been here before, but enjoyed showing Laila some of the largest cedar/spruce/fir trees in the world. She wants to go back to climb Mt Olympus...a 3-day backpacking expedition. That night we stayed at Kalaloch Lodge on the Pacific Ocean. Wednesday morning we ran up the beach for 40 minutes before turning around, for a nearly hour and a half run.

My parents live in Olympia--in their many times remodeled home on Puget Sound. We stopped in for dinner Wednesday evening, before heading up to McChord AFB for the evenings lodging prior to our flight out this morning.

Great Trip! We needed more time though!