The Sun Run 2007

I know, nothing worse than old news……except bad old news. Well, The Sun Run was mostly great news, so you’re going to hear about it anyhow. But since so many of you ran, attended the (4+ hour) brief debriefing, read the Sun, and/or suffered politely the onslaught of talking swelled-heads (mostly mine ;)), I will try to provide commentary and arcane background trivia instead of headlines. There, now that I’ve totally excused my tardiness in getting this out, here goes….. The biggest highlight was 11 people having PB’s out of a whopping 40-something club participants! Then there was Katrina Driver finishing a VFAC all-time best of 9th overall, with an almost minute PB of 35:29, which moves her to 3rd all-time VFAC woman (see club records). This was her 4th PB in 5 weeks, which has in no small part been due her new found even pacing strategy (actually a negative split in the Sun Run, which undoubtedly makes a big difference when one is faced with the Burrard Bridge right after halfway!). Chris Downie knocked an incredible 4 minutes off his PB with a 34:49, while Katherine Moore at 38:41 and Fiona Jenkins at 39:01 also improved by more than a minute. Other bests were chalked up by Paul Krochak (32:23), Rod Urquhart (37:01), Rita Ivanauskas (whose 38:01 won her $250 as 3rd master), Nicola Everton (38:58), Natalie Closs (39:55), new member Sarah Louw (44:59), and Julia Gerlitz (45:04). 12 finished in the top 100 Women: Katrina, Rita, Katherine, Nicola, Fiona, Natalie, Kirsty Siemens (40:16), Tracy Hall (40:26 with a green #!), new member Laura De Munain (40:30), Adele Wilson (40:42 and only 3 days early on a 3 minute win in the 50+ division), Sue Werner (42:44), and Bonnie Kramer (43:39). 9 men also did the trick: Simon Driver (1 second off last year’s PB at 32:00, though maybe the 15:27 5k split might have had something to do with that ;)), Paul, Mark Wickstead (34:23), Silas Wiefelspuett (34:35), Chris, Shaun Stephens-Whale (35:01), Dave Reed (35:09), Dave Palma (35:40), and Joel Werner (35:46). Mike Negraeff was 4th in the Wheelchair division (30:15), while partner Kathleen continued her post-pregnancy comeback with a solid 45:39. In addition to most of the above, Bob Wade (37:30) and Lilian Wong (47:03) made the top ten in their age groups. Also notable was the best-in-several-year 40:30 by Kim Jow, showing that staying away from the coach for awhile might just be good for one’s performance. One final, personal note to an excellent day, was the fact that I was bailed out by a Hill actually competing in the thing, as my dad, Cliff, placed a very humbling second in the 85-89 with an 83:19. A very tough act to follow! Congratulations to all who competed!