BMO Vancouver Marathon: what happens when a trail runner hits the road?

I sent my friend a screenshot of my registration: “Hey guess what? I signed up for BMO Vancouver Marathon!”

They quip back, “You know they do this event on a road, right?”

Ha. Yep. Time for something a little different. I knew that doing another big multi-day trail race was out of the question for this season due to other summer plans and financial constraints, but I was still looking for some kind of challenge to keep me learning and growing as an athlete. And since 2024 is the year I turn 42, a 42.2km road race sounded like an appropriate way to celebrate.

It would also be only my second marathon ever. My first marathon was in Edmonton when I was 24. I had no idea what I was doing, slogged out a 4:41 finish time, and swore I would never do anything like that ever again. So I didn’t. Until now.

I didn’t run for over a year after finishing that race because I got pregnant shortly after and suffered from such extreme nausea that running felt impossible. Over the next 6 years I ran sporadically, usually training for a half marathon between each of my three pregnancies, mostly with the goal of weight loss and regaining lost fitness. I enjoyed running, but wasn’t in love with the sport yet.

Then in about 2016, while training for the Lululemon Seawheeze half marathon in Vancouver, I discovered trail and ultrarunning and never looked back. I love all that ultrarunning has given me, and I am in no way done with big distance and chasing views, but I was also curious about what else I was capable of.

It started when a few women I had been running with in the mornings were inviting me to weekend long runs with texts like “I have a 20km at a 5:20 pace on my plan, you interested?”

This was different from trail runner invites that are more like; “Hey, lets do a mountain day, maybe a couple summits? Bring snacks and bear spray”

I realized I had no idea whether or not I was capable of running 20km at that pace or not. I had never really tried. At first I declined those invites, thinking there was no way I could do that, but after trying on my own a few times I realized that I could, and even started to wonder if I could put down a decent marathon pace, maybe even qualify for Boston Marathon. So I started asking different questions to my road runner friends, especially my friend Sonya who has a lot of experience (and a sub-3 marathoner!). She sent me some workouts to follow and coached me through the process, geeking out with me over heart rate data, pace times and hormone cycles. She joined me on several of my tempo and long runs, pushing me to sustain paces that were completely outside my comfort zone. Spending 2 years focused only on 200 milers doesn’t exactly prepare you for the pain of an 18km tempo run. It’s not necessarily harder, or easier, it’s just different.

It turned into a very cool experiment on how the body can adapt to whatever you throw at it.

So on Sunday, May 5th, I stood at the start line, with 7500 other people, waiting for the start gun to signal that it was time to throw something different at my body. I admit, I felt out of place. I’ve grown so accustomed to smaller mass starts and packs stuffed with safety gear and snacks, that this super-shoe wearing crowd felt foreign to me. I also found myself questioning if I should be in the second corral. What if I didn’t seed myself right and I spent the whole race getting passed?

No time to ponder. Off goes the gun and thousands of footsteps descend into chaos. I knew those first few km would fly, and probably a more experienced marathoner would know how to conserve at the start and go for a negative split, but I like to think that if it feels easy, it is easy, and that is a gift you should just accept. So I enjoyed every km that came in under 5 mins and did my best to hold my place or pass others in the crowd.

I had been warned that it was a ‘hilly’ course, with 250m of gain. And even though that is nothing compared to 12 000m of gain at The Divide, I also knew better then to underestimate how hard it was to do those hills at a quick pace. Turns out it was fine, and when I heard people around me say that the hills were done, I could relax a bit. To be honest, I didn’t even notice them. It felt easy and that was a gift I was happy to accept.

Around 18-20km I was still feeling pretty good, but was noticed some cramps. So I stopped at the porta potty and to my dismay, realized I had gotten my period. Talk about terrible timing. But it takes a lot more then that to derail my race, so I flew out that porta potty and got back to my steady pace.

The 30km marker passed and I tried my best to do the math to figure out if I would hit my goal time. According to my watch, I was at a good place to do so as long as I maintained pace around the Vancouver Seawall, the most beautiful part of the course, but also where a lot of people struggle.

At around 38 km I realized that there was a pretty significant difference between the distance shown on my watch and the number on the km marker signs along the course. When I recalculated, I started to question if I would actually hit 3:40 or not. By 40km, it became clear that was not gonna happen. I wasn’t upset about it. I knew I was close and I was doing my best.

Honestly, it’s pretty tough to be upset about anything when there are hundreds of people lining the course for the last few km cheering you on. This is another thing so different about road marathons. Unlike ultras, where you may have less then a dozen people at the finish line, and usually half of them are your family, it was so fun to have crowds cheering, holding signs and even calling encouragements to you by name (as they read it on your bib) as you passed.

I crossed the finish line with a chip time of 3:41:17. 1 minute and 17 seconds off of a Boston Marathon qualifying time. Afterwards I checked my Garmin stats. It showed I had 1 minute and 16 seconds of idle time. The time in the porta potty. Which means, my period cost me a qualifying time. Yay for being a girl.

No, but seriously. I’m not upset about it at all. This whole thing was to explore a curiosity I had about new ways to experience a sport I love. It was also a part of rebuilding after two years of 200 mile training to get stronger and faster. A part of that process was to make sure I was fueled and recovered enough to keep my hormone health in a good place. I’ve struggled to maintain regular periods in the past, due to overtraining/underfueling, and so in a way, getting my period while running the fastest race of my life was pretty cool.

Some people have offered consolations like ‘you’ll qualify next time’. But I’m not convinced there will be a next time for the road marathon. Maybe. But I also still have big goals in ultrarunning and only so much time and money. There were also a few things about supporting an event like this that felt uncomfortable to me. The whole thing was very slick and corporate; in stark contrast to the grassroots charm of most trail races I do. There was also a sickening environmental impact to the whole event. Mountains of single use cups, clothes, gloves, gel wrappers thrown along the course and headed for the landfill. (I think they donate discarded clothes, but even that is such a problematic contribution to the very harmful ‘disposable clothing’ textile industry). Not to mention the sheer volume of race shirts, swag and promotional flyers. They did offer a ‘green option’ to register with no race shirt, which was nice, but still, there was a lotta shirts produced for that event. So thank you very much to the very nice Bank of Montreal employee who handed me a pair of ugly branded socks. I will reluctantly take them only because my daughter happens to love ugly socks. I still don’t approve of your corporate greed-fueled efforts to win me over with your promotional swag.

Either way, it was a great weekend away, full of spring trees in full bloom, lots of family time and some beautiful bike rides with the kids. I’m thrilled with my time, and the things I learned along the way. I’m especially grateful to Sonya, and the many incredible athletes who kill it out there on road with crazy fast times. I’m absolutely in awe of what some people are capable of.

What now? Time to get back to climbing some hills. This time they will be steep enough I’ll notice them for sure 😉