A few more pics.

Here are a few more pics from the Whistler half.

Now since this endeavor has a second part to it - namely get a dissertation written I thought I should provide a short update on that front.
My work office is officially cleaned up and ready for my replacement to take over. That means I'm working from home or SFU from now on.
I am three weeks into a directed readings course and so far so good, 15 articles down, 35 (or more) to go. 2 funding and fellowship applications complete, next up is shrink the research proposal and finish off the literature search on Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework. So now it's off to find somewhere comfortable to read, read and read some more.

2 down - 10 to go

2 down - 10 to go!
The second official event is now history! I'm very happy to have PB'd on the first one in May, because now I don't need to worry about my times :)
Saturday, June 4th was the inaugural Whistler Half Marathon and what a day it was. Our horrible Spring disappeared for a while leaving us with an absolutely glorious day, sunshine all the way.
Friday was a busy pre-race day, accompanied Michael's class on their big grade 5 field trip to Victoria, MP and I opted out of the parliament building tour in order to catch the 5:00 ferry to Tsawwassen and then make the trek to Whistler. Dave had gone up earlier in the afternoon so he could pick up our race packages. It was a beautiful drive with a total of 4 bears spotted on route.
Saturday morning came awfully early but the sun was out and there was a good crowd of Alma runners at the start line:

I had taken what I thought was a pretty good look at the route for the race but apparently I didn't look close enough, while I though we headed out to Rainbow park on the first part of the race we actually headed up Blueberry Hill. Blueberry is far too unassuming a name for that hill, it went on and on and on. I knew the Valley trail alongside the golf course was hilly but the road was even worse, thank goodness for the down hill stretch that followed. From the summit of Blueberry Hill we sailed down to Wayside park, good directing Jacquie, then some more up as we looped around and came back to Blueberry Hill this time to take the golf course route down. Now we headed off to Rainbow Park and the turn around point, another loop around a residential area then back to the golf course to run alongside the front nine. Along the way we saw lots of evidence of bears, the poop exhibit at the museum in Victoria on Friday proved useful to identify the piles o'poop at the side of the trail. Luckily we didn't see any of the poop depositors, although it sounds like some of the later runners and walkers did encounter at least one bear on the trail. From the golf course we crossed under the highway, took a jaunt through the Village, past the cheering throngs (Newton), and off to the Upper Village (at least I think that's where we went), a few more dipsy doodles and it was back to the Olympic plaza and the finish line.

It truly was a spectacular course and a spectacular day. Many thanks to Nicole for sticking with me through a not very energetic run, I really appreciated the company. Congratulations to those that managed to achieve PB's on a very challenging course; I know for sure that Dave and Christine did, and congrats to all the Alma runners that finished: Andy, Liz, Sebastien, Emma, Nicole, Bob, Phil, Anna, Lina, Susan, Andrew, Tony, and any one else that I may have missed :)
The course organization was wonderful, the volunteers were great and the spectators who came out along the route were fantastic, there was incredible community support for this inaugural race. The only thing missing was a medal for finishing, although the original print is lovely I'm not sure how I'll display it with my 11 other medals :)

The afternoon was spent scouring the Village for the best calamari in town (Carumba wins) and the sickest backpack we could find for Michael.

Then it was the Garibaldi Lift Company in time for the big game - Go Canucks Go!

What a goal Burrows, now that's the way to end an overtime period!

All in all a wonderful weekend!
Next up.....get some work done on that darn degree, get back into a good running routine, I have learned that I cannot run a good half marathon on one run a week, and prepare for the next event - Fueled by Fine Wine in Dundee, Oregon, anyone care to join us??????

Half-Corked

What could be better than a beautiful sunny morning and an 18.3 km run with 9 wineries along the way?
Hmmmm, I can't think of anything can you?

This past Sunday was the second annual Oliver Half Corked Marathon organized by the Oliver and Osoyoos Winery Association (formerly SOWA south okanagan winery association). Team Greased Lightening consisting of Danny, Kinnecki, Rizzo, Jan, Frenchie, Cookie, Marty and Sandy (bad version) was ready to go and fueled up with some Gerhinger Bros wines at 8:00 am.

Following the costume parade and judging we were off, with a quick stop to drop off the ghetto blaster (don't know why Ken didn't want to carry it the whole 18.3 km). After a short downhill jog and onto the farm roads we were in the midst of Tinhorn Creek vineyards - once again Tinhorn served up some lovely Sangria, white this year, and refreshing watermelon. If you are interested in the sangria recipe Tinhorn has posted it on their website - beware it serves 144, you may want to scale things down a little. Another short trek along the farm roads took us to Iniskillan but wait, there was Dave but what happened to Greased Lightening? Apparently it must have been a Ford for it was "found on roadside dead" - a fautly seatbelt bolt prevented Dave from carrying our transportation for the whole race. Erica did a great job at ensuring our beautiful vehicle made it's way to one of the support shuttles so it we could retrieve it at the end of the run. From there the wineries kept coming fast and furious, Road 13 and Rustico Cellars were up next - at this rate we were going to run out of wineries well before we ran out of distance. From Rustico we went down into the valley, crossed the highway and travelled along the canal, being careful to avoid the "drowning machine" and started our trek up the other side of the Golden Mile with a visit to Silver Sage - a beautiful setting, this is where the race ended last year, with some interesting wines. After Silver Sage there were some hills to climb to reach Church and State, followed by Stoneboat and Oliver Twist. Stoneboat wins for the most refreshing presentation of a wine, they turned their white blend, Chorus, into a delicous granita with grapefruit, lemon, lime and orange juices. Leah assures me we can easily make this treat. Leaving Oliver Twist we left the vineyards and continued our journey on Black Sage Road. If you've been counting you will notice we are already at 9 wineries, and the distance at this point was only around 12 km, the next 6 km were not looking too good. We had been warned so the rather long hill at 13 km was not a surprise but I think all would agree it was very long and some of that Tinhorn sangria would have been very welcome half way up. While there was no sangria to be had, there were apple fritters and fizzy fruit drinks to be had at the top, and then a short jaunt down the hill to La Quinta Ferria for the last winery stop, and then it was all downhill to the Oliver Community Centre.
Most of our group stuck together, finishing in just under 3:00, not the speediest of times but possible one of the funest times.
The finish line provided a lovely lunch, and guess what else? More wine, the association wineries that were not part of the route were present at the finish line to offer their selections.
Finally the morning finished off with presentations of awards, our hard work on costumes paid off and Greased Lightening won the best group costume award - a 3.0 L magnum of limited edition Half Corked Red wine. Every participant received a bottle of this wine in their race packages, a blend of reds from all 23 participating wineries. Team Greased Lightening thouroughly enjoyed their winnings that evening.

Here are a few pics of our day :)

And next up.....the Whistler half in one and a half days - stay tuned.