BMO Half-Marathon 2015

Thank you everyone for all your encouragement and support these past few months! All the training and hard work has paid off! My official results for my first ever half-marathon is 1:38:41. A personal best! I’m still a bit sore from the race so I’ll need a few days to recover:)

I joined the half-marathon with World Vision to help raise money to fight against child trafficking around the world. As a team, World Vision has raised over $50,000 to help fight against child trafficking! Thank-you for being a part of my journey and for all your support. I could not have done it without you.

Here is a link to some of the photos taken during the race: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5o12tuxheqq4evq/AADzQJhe9QyFrfQQsW6lHjR0a?dl=0

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Vancouver Sun Run 2015

In my first year of running the Sun Run, I ran it in 47:41. I’ll never forget my first experience. The actual race started at 9am but I arrived there a bit “late” around 8:45am. There were so many people crowded around that I couldn’t make it to my designed color area. I was supposed to be starting in the yellow section but I ended up starting near the back of green, one color below. During the race I remember passing so many people that it got a bit tiring.

In my second time around, I wanted to make sure I did not make the same mistake like last time. I got to my designated yellow color area about 45 minutes early. This made a huge difference. There were fewer crowds of people and you had your own space to run! In the end, I had a personal best time of 43:43! I couldn’t believe it. I never would’ve thought I’d run under 45 minutes!

 

Urban Grind

Last week I went to climb the stairs at the Harbour Centre, known as the Urban Grind. This was an alternative to the Grouse Grind since it was closed momentarily until May for trail maintenance. The Harbour Centre is a 28 storey building (equivalent to 40 flights of stairs) and is 593 steps to the top. The cost is $5.00 but that gets you a free voucher to the Harbour Centre’s food court and also a free beer when you get to the top of the observation deck. From there, you are also rewarded with great views of the city of Vancouver.

I went with a few people from my work place. When we got there, we were surprised that there was a huge line-up. We had to wait in line for about 10 minutes. I decided to time myself to see how long it would take to climb the stairs from bottom to top. It took me 5 minutes and 45 seconds! To get down, you can either take the elevator or take the stairs. I decided to do it a second time so I walked down the stairs and did it again. The second time around it took me 5 minutes and 52 seconds. People were saying that to climb the equivalent of the Grouse Grind, you will have to do the Urban Grind five times.

Happy Canadian Citizenship Day

My friend Roberto recently got his Canadian citizenship. We celebrated by having dinner at Cazba’s restaurant in downtown Vancouver. He thought it was going to be just him and his wife for dinner so it was a bit of a surprise for him to see his group of friends all at the restaurant! When he entered the restaurant, I draped him with a Canadian Flag and we all sang “Happy Canadian Citizenship day” to him (with the tune of Happy Birthday). Good times!

No Chips for One Year!

It has now been officially ONE YEAR since my no chip eating contest! I started this contest with my co-worker and we both agreed that we would both not eat any chips for one year, or until someone caved in. It was based out of the honour system. So if one of us accidently ate a chip, as a consequence, we would have to buy the other person a family-sized bag of chips. Some people have different definitions of what a chip is so we had to lay some ground rules. Basically, we couldn’t have any potato chips (lays, kettle, mrs. vickies, doritos, cheezies, pringles, etc). However, we were allowed to eat kale or banana chips, etc. Not sure how much longer I can keep this up but at least I’m not craving as much salty snacks as before!

First Dinner in 2015…Sushi!

To celebrate the start of 2015, my sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandma, Phebe and I went to eat at Matsuyama Japanese restaurant in Richmond. It was my first time being there. We ordered a whole bunch of tuna and salmon sashimi; a bunch of rolls including California, unagi, salmon tempura, spicy scallop; vegetable tempura rolls; salmon belly; spicy salmon sashimi; and miso soup. We wrote down our order on a piece of paper to give to the waiter. He repeated our order and right away he mentioned that we were ordering a lot and probably will not finish everything. We had to reduce our quantities of sushi rolls from three rolls each to two rolls each. We were really glad that we did. By the end of the meal, we were stuffed to the max. Everyone was super full and my hollow legs were up to the brim. It was a good way to start the new year!

 

Festival of Lights at VanDusen Gardens

Phebe and I braved the cold and frigid night at the festival of lights at Van Dusen Gardens. The lights were beautiful, except that you have to share it with hundreds of other people. Below are some of the pictures.