The Vancouver Marathon and five seconds of fame

7 May 2017

Last night Commando went out for a run, his first in a month. He came back within ten minutes. The marathon was off. The pain in his Achilles tendon kicked in almost at once. There was no way he could run a parkrun, never mind a marathon. After all the miles and miles of training and lots of ups and downs when the pain came and went for no apparent reason, the last glimmer of hope died. It was a sad evening. 

Part of him wanted to do exactly what he’d done in Manchester back in 2016. Injury stopped him from running then and we’d made a point of avoiding everything marathon related all day. It was just too hard to watch when he couldn’t run. Back then we’d traveled a few hundred miles though, not six thousand. After a little early morning dithering and some breakfast in Starbucks, he decided he’d go along to cheer the runners on. It was a beautiful sunny day, the course ran along the sea wall around Stanley Park, if running envy got the better of him there would be plenty of distractions.

So we wandered down to Granville Island, took one of the little Aqua Buses and headed for the sea wall. The road above Sunset Beach was coned off and little knots of marshals stood around chatting amongst themselves but, at this point there was no sign of any runners. Jen, who’d originally been planning to spend the morning with me cheering for Commando, rang to say she was on her way.

We waited and waited.
“I’d have expected the fastest runners to have passed by now,” Commando, looked at his watch and did some swift calculations. “Either they’re a lot slower than normal or the race started late.”
“Maybe its the weather. It’s a really hot day, even here on the edge of the beach,” I said.
A nearby marshal overheard. “It did start late,” he told us, “they should be coming through soon though.”

He gave us some little packets of inflatable cheering sticks. These turned out to be a godsend for me. Clapping with my battered right hand was an impossibility. While we were blowing them up the first runner and Jen arrived simultaneously. The runner was way ahead of the rest of the pack. It would be a while before there was much cheering or banging of cheering sticks. We decided on a slow walk along the sea wall towards Stanley Park, stopping now and then to cheer the trickle of fast runners as we went.

As we walked the trickle of runners steadily became a flood. When we reached English Bay Beach, close to the 32k marker, we decided to stop for a while and concentrate on cheering rather than walking. Of all the races I’ve watched in my time, this must count as one of the best cheering positions ever. In front of us was the beach with its scattering of logs to sit on if we needed them. Little boats were sailing about on the clear blue sea and, to our right, there were mountains and the trees of Stanley Park. Jen and I went on a coffee run to the Starbucks on the street right behind us, the one where I got a frappachino to cool my bruised hand after I fell on Friday. There was nothing more we could have wanted, even the public toilets were nearby.

Not long after we’d finished our coffees we spotted news cameras heading towards us stopping random runners to get soundbites.
“If you were on track for a PB that would be annoying,” I said as they stopped a young girl right in front of us.
When the girl got away from the cameras and microphone and carried on with her race the reporters spotted us banging our cheering sticks. A female reporter thrust a microphone into Commando’s face and asked him who he was cheering for.
“I was supposed to be running myself,” he said. “I travelled six thousand miles for it but I’ve got an Achilles injury so I can’t run.”
“That must be disappointing,” the reporter said.
“It is but what can you do? I can either sit around in my hotel room sulking or I can be out here and support people. It’s a beautiful place, I got to see my lovely cousin  Jen and I’ll just have to come back another year and run it.”
The reporter left us with her business card, she was from CTV News, the national news station. Commando was going to be famous, at least for five seconds.

A little way along the beach I noticed a small crowd gathered. There seemed to be a pathway of some kind laid out on the beach, it looked like it was made of flowers. At the end there were long poles, crossed at the top with tinsel or streamers waving from them. It looked very much like a wedding. Curious, we decided to go a little closer.

The flowers were two lines of roses with a scattering of petals between. The poles turned out to be tree branches stuck into the sand and made into an impromptu arch. Beneath it, in the centre of the crowd were two men dressed in black and red and two women wearing long, brightly coloured skirts. It looked as if we were witnessing a First Nations wedding. Although it felt a little as if we were gatecrashing, we stopped for a moment to watch. A woman walked up the beach towards us, holding up a board saying ‘cheer loud.’ We did and got a wave from the men for our troubles.

Later, when we watched the news report* that also included Commando’s five seconds of fame, we learned a little more. Rather than the two brides and grooms we’d thought, we were actually watching two grooms, James Makokis and Anthony Johnson. They’d trained for the marathon together and decided the 32k marker on English Bay Beach in front of all the other runners and supporters would a good place to get married. They certainly had more than their fair share of guests, including two stray and slightly bewildered English people. Of course, once the ceremony was over, they still had another 10k to run. Hopefully they will have a lifetime of happiness ahead to go with their medals.

With the wedding over we decided to cut across Park Lane and head towards the finish line. On Friday, coming back the other way, I’d been too concerned with my throbbing hand to pay much attention to my surroundings. Today, I noticed the trees near the tennis courts were filled with nests. These, Jen informed me, were heron nests and there were even cameras set up so people could watch the action. From the ground we could just make out the nests and the birds coming and going although I had to take her word for it they were herons.

Every branch was weighed down with nests. Apparently this is one of the largest urban heron colonies in North America. The herons have been nesting here for the last seventeen years. Some will use old nests from previous seasons, others will start from scratch and build anew. The cameras were switched on in early March when the herons began to build and the first chicks hatched in April. By July the chicks will fly the nests and head to the marshland feeding grounds.

We may not have had any good views of the herons or the hatchlings but we did see the remains an empty egg shell, pale blue and crazed with cracks where the chick inside had been packing to get out. Soon we reached the Lost Lagoon and passed the fountain. Behind the trees we could see the tops of the mountains we stood on yesterday.

On the far side of the the underpass beneath the Sea To Sky Highway causeway we caught up with the marathon course again, close to the 41k point. The tired runners were being motivated by songs from Elvis in his trademark white suit and a blue lei around his neck.
“Who knew Elvis was alive and well and living in Vancouver?” I laughed.
It really was quite surreal. He was met with varying reactions from the runners. Some ran past, hardly giving him a glance, although they must have seen him. Maybe they thought they were imagining him, If I’d been running for twenty five and a half miles and bumped into him I might well have thought I was hallucinating too. Others smiled or shook his hand as they passed. One man stopped and bowed down in reverance.

We were in Devonian Harbour Park near the Coal Harbour Seawall, once an area owned by Hawaiian settlers who called the area Kanaka Ranch. In 1984 the land was purchased with help from a $600,000 doration from the Devonian Foundation in Alberta. It was turned into a small and colourful park. Unfortunately, with the tail end of the marathon running through it we couldn’t really explore. By this time it was around one o’clock, a long time since our early breakfast, and we were all beginning to get hungry. We decided it was time to leave the last of the marathon finishers and head towards Coal Harbour to find somewhere to eat.

On the way through the park we discovered that not all Vancouver residents are exercise freaks. A cyclist whizzed past with a little carriage attached to his bike containing one very lazy dog. We also stumbled upon a truly beautiful sculpture. At first glance I thought an elderly lady was sitting in a bench searching through her bag. When I looked closer though I realised this was a wonderful creation in bronze by J. Seward Jr. Johnson called Search.

Locally the sculpture is known as Flower Lady because, for some reason, people seem compelled to decorate her with cut flowers. Today she had a bright orange ribbon on her hair with dark purple tulips tucked into it and a small bouquet in her open handbag. She also had a ribbon, or maybe a scrunchie around her outstretched ankle. I loved the detail of the piece, the clutter in her open bag, the glasses on her head. What she was searching for is a mystery but my guess is those glasses.

After a morning walking along the seawall watching the marathon it was a huge contrast to be back in the hustle and bustle of the city so quickly. We deflated our cheering sticks and began to look for somewhere to eat. This proved harder than expected because there was so much choice but, in the end, we settled on Banana Leaf, a Malaysian restaurant with a blend of Indonesian, Thai, Indian, Chinese and Portuguese. We couldn’t have chosen better if we tried. It may not have been the marathon we’d expected when we planned this trip. Commando was, understandably disappointed not to be running, but we’d made the best of a bad situation and had a lovely time in the end.

*Commando’s five seconds of fame can be seen here, along with me and Jen cheering like loons in the background.

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