A couple of years ago, a friend of mine kept asking me to go out running with her. I kept refusing. A heart attack I did not need while attempting to keep up with her was my reasoning. Then in the spring of ’06, I heard about a “Learn to Run” class at the Running Room. I thought, well maybe I’ll give it a try. How bad could it be, right?

So I joined up with May 29, 2006 being my first running class. My friend joined the class with me to start running again. I finished the “Learn to Run” class and was astonished to be able to run 20 minutes. I enjoyed it enough to join a 5 km running clinic. My friend was still running with me but was starting to slowly drop out of the class. I started running with other women in the clinic and was on my way to forming a nice running support group. My friend was still talking about doing a 10 km clinic in December or January but I didn’t have any intention of running more than 5 km at that time. Little did I know of the things to come.

I finished the 5 k clinic and started running with the 5 km run club. Kirsten, who started to become my running partner in the 5 k clinic, continued running with me. No other clinics were starting right away. A month goes by and next thing we know, Chris, our friend and “Learn to Run” instructor was talking us into joining the half marathon clinic that was starting up and introduced us to her friend Shaun. Shaun was one of the half marathon instructors. One Sunday, Kirsten and I decided to try a run with the half marathon clinic while they were still at 7 k to see how bad it could be. Well, it wasn’t too bad once Shaun reigned us in to the proper pace group. We decided to join the clinic. Then came the hill and speed work, along with each progressively longer Sunday run. “What did I let myself in for?” I continuously had a scared, concerned look on my face, but Shaun did not let me run away. Okay, so she is faster than I am and can certainly run longer than I can, so I didn’t have a chance.

Even though I continued with the half marathon clinic, I still did not have any intention of running a half marathon race. I was just doing the clinic to keep running and to keep in shape. However, the next thing I knew, Kirsten and Chris were talking me into signing up for a race. The “First Half” race had sold out instantly when registration opened, but Chris and Shaun had heard about another half marathon race in Fort Langley on Feb 18, 2007. So I thought, ‘How bad could it be, right?’ and signed up. Lucky for Kirsten and I, Shaun was going to be our pace bunny for the 2:30 finish time for which we were training. We knew she would help to motivate us to keep running and finish on time.

The day before the race, Kirsten, Chris and I drove out to Fort Langley to pick our race packages. We had to drive part of the race route to get there. We went down a relatively long and steep hill that had one small hill in it. I didn’t understand the significance of that hill at the time.

So on the race day, Kirsten, June (another half-marathoner) and I drove out to Fort Langley bright and early. Kirsten and I had our water bottles and gels thinking we were prepared. We used the bathroom many times with pre-race jitters. Then we found Shaun and got ourselves organized into our pace groups.

The race started. We were excited. We had trained and we had Shaun. We knew there were a couple of hills. We went up the first large hill to the Wildlife Preservation in the first 7 or so km. Okay, that was a challenge but we did it. It wasn’t too bad. Next came a long seemingly flat stretch. I was becoming pre-occupied with the need to use a port-a-potty as my bladder decided to send increasingly urgent messages to my brain. The trees started looking good but next thing I knew my legs were feeling more tired than I thought they should. Realization and distress dawned on me, ‘I’d been running up a very long gradual incline. It wasn’t flat at all!’

Well, we finally came to a port-a-potty at about the 12 or 13k point which I gratefully stopped to use while Kirsten stretched out her legs. Then we had to catch up to our pace group because, of course, they weren’t going to stop. Thankfully we were now going downhill – a very long downhill which we did not realize the significance of. We caught back up to the group and were still able to gasp out the odd comment, joke and chorus of “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” There were a few little hills, but that was okay. Then we turned a corner and look up – way up. I found out how bad it could be. From about the 16k to 19k point was a really steep hill. Shaun was slowly leaving us behind. We were slowly passing other people who started to walk up the hill which I desperately wanted to do. I was praying for our walk break to happen at any moment. I still don’t know how I made it up that hill, but I know it had something to do with our training, Shaun’s pace bunny presence and Kirsten’s encouragement. I seem to recall getting my walk break close to the top.

Well, Kirsten and I miraculously made it to the top and as we turned the corner we saw before us the long steep downhill that we drove the day before. What goes up must come down. Well, Kirsten and I picked up our feet and started flying down that hill. We caught up to Shaun who told us she was doing a catch and release. We were to keep going and not stay at her pace. So we continued flying down the hill and didn’t even notice the small uphill part way down. We turned the corner at the bottom of the hill and saw the finish line. Kirsten wanted to start sprinting to the finish line at that point but I didn’t think I had the energy for it. However, when we got closer, we started sprinting and could see that the clock didn’t yet say 2:30. We could also hear June and others cheering us giving us that extra boost of energy to keep up the sprint pace to cross the finish line at a clock time of 2:29:23 which turned into a chip time of 2:27:54. We were ecstatic. Little did we know at the time, but we were actually running up hill, even if just slightly, to the finish line. It turned out that only about 17% of the whole race course was flat. We found out just how bad it could be and still, we signed up for another half marathon which we ran in May ’07 beating our first half marathon time.

Pamela Felix, Vancouver, BC, October 2007