The weather turned out great for the roughly 15,000 participants of the BMO Vancouver Marathon today! The sun was out and the air was still brisk.
The annual BMO Vancouver Marathon is held on the first Sunday in May each year. It is Canada’s second largest international marathon and has been around since 1972. The original 1972 “British Columbia Marathon” course went around Stanley Park five times and there were only 46 entrants. This race event is a qualifier for the Boston Marathon drawing elite and recreational athletes from around the world – with 41 countries in 2009!
Kilometre 18 of the race course passes by my apartment so I went down to the street to check out the action. The course was well run with volunteers directing the marathoners and half marathoners and volunteers cheering and offering help. There were coaches roaming the course giving support and words of encouragement to team members. Runners came in all shapes and sizes, ages and colour. They ran independently or for running groups or organizations such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, Team “ish”, Running Room, people running for Japan and many, many more. I especially loved the colourful outfits that some of the runners were wearing.
With so many participants I did manage to spot one of my best friends looking spry and relatively fresh at kilometre 18. That’s what dedicated training will do! I’m still learning about photography and my camera so I was taking lots of different shots. The lighting was a bit of a challenge as it was sunny with lots of shadows cast by surrounding buildings but I think they still turned out pretty good.
Hey runners, how did you enjoy the race? Feel free to let me know if you spot yourself in one of these pictures and I can tag you in them!
*Note* The slideshow will take a moment to load as there are lots of pictures!
nice job!!! there were some crazy costumed people there too, i was following Tinkerbell and Superwoman for awhile. I was really impressed at how many of the ‘older’.. meaning grey haired runners there were and also how many people were running for someone else which they advertised on their shirts. I think i will do that next time.
Congrats & great work on your first halfer! Aren’t costumes fun? I got a picture of Tinkerbell in one of my photos somewhere and a mouse running for Japan. I missed the guy with the white tutu ;o) Quite a few Canucks fans running too. Hope I get to join you in a future race!