“He dropped me on the final stretch” Kyle Kimura reminisces on his early days in the Sun Run

Next up on the VFAC blog is Kyle Kimura.

Getting ready for another Van race

Kyle was recently awarded as VFAC’s “Athlete’s Athlete” at our annual Christmas party. For those of you who don’t know, VFAC gets together each year around Christmastime to celebrate the club’s achievements. Oh, and dance! This year we even made a playlist!

The Athlete’s Athlete award is given to one club member per year. This award goes to the person who is a good solid club member who competes in many races and represents the club well. This person doesn’t have to be the speediest but would be a motivated, dedicated runner who gives it their best every time. Someone who also encourages and inspires other club members both in workouts and races.” This should also be the person that people look up to and respect for their work ethic, desire, sportsmanship, and camaraderie. John put this as “who would you want as your captain?”

Those last 400m! Photo: Debra Kato

What some of our team had to say about Kyle when he was nominated:

“Kyle is committed to his own training (a great model for smart training) but he’s always willing to help pace some of our less speedy runners in their final reps at workouts – he’s encouraging and supportive.”

 “He’s great with advice and hardworking with a good attitude. Has accompanied me on many marathon-build long-runs and recently I know he’s attended some workouts just to support.” 

“He consistently shows up to the practices and the meetings with a positive attitude. Even though he is on his break from running competitively, he comes out to the practices and paces his fellow runners. He takes the coaching assistant role seriously and he makes sure everyone is staying safe during the practice.” 

Kyle’s Sun Run memory

The first year was 2005, as a 15-year-old kid doing his first 10k ever. We were on a school team – although there were only three of us who actually ran it in the end. I finished in 49:07- which I was pretty happy with considering I had no idea what that actually meant. I had zero context for how fast time could be.

In 2011, I ran it again with my friend who had been training a lot more than I had. I ran a 42-minute race the year before but had lost some fitness. We ran the entire race together until the top of the Cambie Street bridge, and then he dropped me on the final stretch to finish in 44 minutes. I came in around 45. To this day, he still likes to remind me that he is much faster than me, despite the fact that he has never beaten that time and has pretty much “retired” from running.

Kyle chasing down a fellow competitor Photo: Nic Browne

Kyle has since run a lot faster than 42 minutes – with a PB of 33:12! But sometimes we don’t want to take the glory away from our friends. Thanks, Kyle!

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