Vancouver “First Half” Half-Marathon

This Sunday my friend Matt was running in the 22nd “First Half” Half Marathon and since I hadn’t really gotten to many images of actual races I decided this would be a great opportunity for me to catch runners in their element. Plus I wanted to get a few photos of Matt, since he helped a good bit over the past year. So I woke up at six, prepared by grabbing both cameras and headed down to Homer St.

Unlike almost every other time I have driven to downtown Vancouver, I was actually able to find parking and it only cost me $2.50. Okay so back to the race. It was a beautiful morning with a few bouts of ominous clouds making their way over the city. But mostly it was beautiful, a little chilly but mostly perfect running weather.

Matt is currently training for the Boston Marathon but he will also be running Vancouver’s annual Sun Run. His motivation for running is to raise money for Parkinson’s research with the help of TEAMFOX.

I am really glad I went. It was amazing for me to hear that Matt finished 15 minutes faster than he did the last time he ran a half marathon and that his email to me the night before said he would be done in 1:30 and he finished at 1:30:14. It was also wonderful to see how many spectators showed up to this. There were a lot of families and the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun just watching and playing at the park near by. Many climbed on top of monkey bars just to get a higher vantage point to see the runners.

Anyway, I’ll let the photos tell the rest. Oh and the people who ran this were amazing. It is hard to put such dedication into words and that is why I love pictures. :D

I loved how their bodies almost seem in sync.

The start of the race

A young girl waits close to the finish line

The kid looked right at me as people sped passed him.

The home stretch, right before the last turn

Matt pushing it at the very end of the race

The finish line

Matt after he finished the run

A woman rings a cowbell at the finish line to motivate those who are close to the end

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2011 at 9:43 PM. It is filed under Blog, Sports and tagged with "first half" half marathon, Marathon, TeamFox, Vancouver, vancouver half marathon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.