Banff Marathon
Banff Marathon….
Shortly after arriving in Canada at the beginning of May we completed the Vancouver ½ Marathon. It was a great day out.
We then saw that there was another ½ Marathon in Banff around the time we would be visiting. Oh well – why not. We changed our plans and extended our stay to complete this run – and glad we did.
Leading up to run – we had a run (pun intentional) of bad weather and did not get to complete as many runs/walks as we would have liked. We did get a great day of walking in just before the marathon – see previous post.
On the day of the marathon – yippee!! Great weather. A sunny day and reasonably warm temps. The run only started at 9:30 – rather late for a run in our books. Having done little running with all our travelling and Glenda being sick, we decided to take it easy and enjoy the day out. I thought that was the plan we agreed? Glenda had other ideas – and took off at a quicker pace than planned. Some days you just need to run at what feels right. I was concerned that she would pay for this in the second half.
The course is great in that there is lots of great scenery and a reasonable field size. Not so great is that most of the course is spectator free. Access is closed to runners. In the lead up there was talk about bears and weather to carry ‘bear spray’ (mace). Anyway, we decided we would not bother – if a bear gets close enough to use ‘bear spray’ we figure you have a big issue. Glad to report we did not encounter any bears on the run.
Back to the run – the backdrop was stunning and helped focus us on the beauty rather than any pain. The 2nd third of the run is often the hardest. We were able to continue keeping a good pace. Towards the end we again had spectator support which always helps keep us going. And so, despite little training we were able to complete this run somewhat quicker than the one we did in Vancouver.
At the end they had a few snacks – that was breakfast/lunch taken care off. Our celebration consisted of a cup of coffee at a great coffee shop we had found in Canmore.