Another road trip – Vancouver, BC!

So the original half-marathon that I was targeting to race was actually the BMO Vancouver Marathon in the beginning of May. Given all of my previous training woes, I had no expectation that I would have actually been able to run Whidbey 3 weeks earlier. After Whidbey, Marc and I went to NYC to spend some time with the family and see some friends. Unfortunately, Marc and I were not at our best which made the trip more difficult than we both would have liked. I ended up losing something like 5 lbs. in 4 days with some kind of intestinal thing, and Marc had an earache which got worse on the flight from Seattle to NYC.

On the positive side, we did get to spend some time with our nephews, Harrison and Jeffrey, as well as my parents and siblings, so that was good. We also got to see Gina, Chris and their 2 sons, as well as Maryanne, Grant, Bonnie, Holly, Mark & Siu Yun, although it seemed like I was in the bathroom for most of the time. Anyway I should mention that we had an awesome tiramisu at Union Square Café with my Mom (really light and fluffy, and not too heavy). Not much else to report on the food front other than the fact that what I did manage to eat at Buddakan was excellent, but I needed some assistance from Mark F. to finish off my plate. For our return, I can't remember the last time I was so happy to get home and get into bed right after a flight. Yeah, it was bad. And what was worse was that I had the Vancouver ½ in a couple of weeks so losing weight like this was not good.
I did a couple of training runs, light workouts, etc. to try and battle my way through until we left for Vancouver. I finally started feeling better around the time we went to Chris and Robyn's for dinner – of course, Robyn made this AWESOME peppermint chocolate cake – which was a week before the race. We left for Vancouver and encountered massive traffic on the main road from the Canadian border to the city of Vancouver. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to have 7 highway lanes merge into 1 (yes, ONE) lane. The weather was looking ok for the weekend so once we got there, we headed off to dinner. Here is the restaurant rundown:

• Villa del Lupo – right in the main downtown area.
• Rain City Grill – overlooked the bay with a beachfront, as well as a park. Plus we had some comedy going on outside of the restaurant which added to the ambience. We discovered a BC wine that we enjoyed - Laughing Stock Portfolio, which is a Bordeaux-style blend
• Fuel – in the Kitsilano section of town, which kind of reminds me of Carroll Gardens and Park Slope for the NY'ers out there. Lots of cool restaurants, fun shops, etc. Marc found a new favorite cheese - Fleur d'Aunis (a more firm version of his beloved Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery)

Fuel was, by far, our favorite restaurant. The service was good, the food was awesome and the tables were not on top of each other. The dishes were eclectic without being over the top. I particularly enjoyed the amuse bouche that had an apple with a sprinkle of rosemary and pecorino. Very flavorful. If you go to Vancouver, BC, you should check out Fuel, and maybe even allow some time before dinner to walk around the neighborhood. Rain City Grill was the 2^nd favorite, and only because Fuel was so excellent. The food was very good, as was the service. We were given a great table, which had an unobstructed view of the sunset over the bay (one of the best so far this year, we were told). Villa del Lupo was solid, and if you want good Italian, this is the place. But Fuel would be the place I would go back to in a heartbeat.
Our server at Rain City Grill enthusiastically recommended the cupcake place across the street for dessert, and given that the sunset was so awesome, we picked up some cupcakes and sauntered over to the beach. These cupcakes were all of that and a bag of chips. Moist, flavorful, mmmm…. Made me think of Magnolia Bakery from the West Village before it was "outed" by 'Sex and the City' creators.
On to the race. Got up and took the bus to the race start. Just having been to one race made a huge difference in terms of what to expect – i.e., bathroom lines, etc. As I was finding a place to start, guess who I run into? That's right – "6-1"! I kid you not. She said that she did more hill training after our last race, which I thought was funny. We traded spots back and forth throughout the race, and I smoked her on the nasty hill that went up 200 ft. in about ¾ mile, but she caught me on the flats towards the end. She got me in the end by about 5 seconds. Marc was awesome running around from place to place, snapping pics and ensuring that I was fueling properly. It ended up being a beautiful morning and the runners were treated to some great mountain views. Unfortunately this also meant that it was a bit warmer than I was dressed for.
I finished in 2 hours and 9 minutes, which beat my previous time by 2 minutes. The basic deal was that I checked my watch towards the end of mile 12 and noticed that I had a chance to do this under a 10 minute/mile pace. So I pushed as hard as I could. I probably looked like "the little engine that could". I finished, worked my way through the insanity of the area around the finish line and walked towards the hotel to meet Marc. This was probably the best thing I could have done to help my legs so they wouldn't stiffen up. Of course it was weird to feel like you had a full day already and it was only 9:30am. I went down to the hot tub after the race and it was jammed with a bunch of other racers sharing stories. Good times.
My massage later on in the day was nice, but the look on Marc's face after his chocolate wrap was even better. All in all, a fun weekend and a good race for me.