BMO Vancouver Marathon's 50th Anniversary Race Recap

Author: Hilary Spires

 This was my 4th road marathon, and the 1st attempt at a ‘fast’ (relative to me) effort. I’m primarily a trail runner, so the idea of pounding the pavement looking at paces isn’t super exciting but after finishing a grueling 135km trail race in September I thought the change might be nice. It took a few weeks but I convinced my training partner, Katie Mills, to join me. She had just finished an epic 400km across the spine of Wales where she absolutely demolished the women’s field with a new course record. 

I’ve run 3 marathons before this. One of those was my first, very uneducated attempt on little training. The other 2 were last minute decisions for reasons I can’t remember. One I gave myself 11 days to prepare, the other one, less than 24 hours. My off the couch PB was 3:47, so it was exciting to see what a little consistent speed work could do! Sunday May 1st we headed to the start line with fancy new road kicks and all the in race nutrition we could need from the Tsawwassen Run Inn. 

We got to the start line to find there was a major delay. They didn’t tell the racers why but it turns out there was a bomb threat. Luckily everything was handled and we took off when safe to do so. 

The first half was great, but I fought the urge to DNF at 30km when my stomach cramped and I found it hard to breath. My legs felt great and my only goal was to not give up so I just kept shuffling. The Kms ticked off and finally we reached the end and the buzz of the crowd and my little 2 year old at the finish line made it all worth it! 

I didn’t have my best day but was happy with a 3:15:59 finish, and Katie ran an amazing 3:07. I was 40th out of 2102 women, so not a bad result but definitely need to try again! 

Huge congrats to all the runners! 

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