Thanksgiving is by far one of the best holidays of the year. I love the cool fresh mornings, being surrounded by family and most of all competing in the Royal Victoria Marathon (RVM), which has become a family tradition!
We usually have a whole gang of people over at our place for thanksgiving and in terms of the RVM it’s always interesting to find out who will be competing in what distance (8km, ½ marathon and full marathon). This year we all decided to compete in the 8km race. This is perhaps because we’re all out of shape, but I prefer to think of the 8km as an even more challenging race because you have to race three times as fast! This was the first 8km I have competed in, so I was curious to see how it would feel. Lucy, my coach, seemed to think I would be able to hold my 5km pace, so that was the goal.  It was a glorious morning and we raced early, running along the shoreline as the sun rose up. There were 2,159 competitors in the 8km race alone, so you can imagine what a scramble it was getting to the start line. We were like a bunch of anxious sardines. The strategy was to get to the start line coming in from the front, not from behind (sneaky I know, but it worked really well!)

The race itself was exhilarating. There is nothing like having the energy of over 2,000 people surrounding you while you fly across the pavement. I crossed the finish line at 31:16 which is a 3:55/minute pace. Not so bad.  This ranked me 1st out of 122 in my age category! My older sister, Shona, was less than a minute behind me as the second finisher in our category. So we pretty much dominated. haha.

We capped the day with a beautiful thanksgiving dinner prepared by Mom and a walk down to the beach. What a magnificent day.