Pride Salvo

30 October - Managed to salvage a bit of my wounded pride this morning. I entered myself into one of the local runs, the 5.9m Seawall Run - most of which I did yesterday on my first run since the marathon yesterday. Woke up pretty early, made a little bit easier by the fact that daylight saving ended and headed out to Stanley Park again. It was raining pretty solidly but it wasn't too cold. Apparently it's one of the oldest runs in Vancouver and it follows a very picturesque trail around on a wall around the sea (hence it's imaginative name). It was pretty flat and quite fast, which isn't really the best for me because it means keeping a high pace throughout but there were about 1400 people particpating (some walking) and I was mostly in the front section - had a few aches and pains from yesterday's long run but still managed to keep a good pace throughout. My nemesis turned out to be a woman who was riding my tail for the last five k's and in the last kilometre I found myself gagging a bit, trying to keep the bile from coming up, I pulled away from the girl (i met her afterwards but can't remember her name - she had an australian husband though) and got a time of about 38m, which I was very happy with. As soon as I crossed the line I went down on one knee and puked (as is my custom, it appears to be). Excellent supply of foodstuffs and comestibles at the end, blueberry bagels, cinnamom rolls, crappy coffee (but this is Canada, so what do you expect), yoghurt and fruit - I think I made up by $22 registration fee in food (i also took hid away a fair amount in my bag bfore I left - i'm unemployed so i'm entitled). The rain pretty much soaked me and the walk home was very cold but upon arrival the students were leaving so I said another goodbye to them. Not sure what my final position was but I think it was pretty good - I presume it'll be posted on the net at some stage. In any event, it wasn't a marathon but it was still a pretty good run so i'm pretty happy about it.