By now you may know that I love to travel for a good running event.  I think running in a new place is one of the best ways to see an area — and I love a reason to travel to a new place AND have a reason to get my J-Lo booty out of bed to run.

My latest adventure was the Lululemon Seawheeze Half Marathon in Vancouver, BC.  I was super excited for this event because with all of the yoga and concerts planned, it seemed like a super fun weekend.  The other selling feature of this run is that they send you a pair of limited edition Lululemon running shorts as part of your entry fee. 

Early in June we received the shorts with a fun little training plan/running log book.  This was a fun surprise to help get excited about the run and serious about my training.  The log book included yoga, meditations and fun little things to think about during your run training. 

This was actually the first half marathon that I’ve signed up for and actually did serious* training.  Usually I just run a consistent 5-6mi run five times a week and hope for the best.  Last year at the Napa to Sonoma half marathon, I knew that I hadn’t done enough training.  Not only was it 105 degrees, but I suffered.  I wanted this half marathon to be different.  I didn’t follow any specific training plan — I made up my own training plan which is a combination of Hanson’s Marathon Method and the Seawheeze training plan.

*When I say “serious”, I mean I’m not doing intervals, hill training or anything of the sort.  I’m just running and extending my distance as I go, with several 9 mile runs prior to the half marathon.

Over the years my speed has gotten slower and slower.  It’s really disappointing because I feel like I’m running just as fast, but the damn Garmin doesn’t lie.  I didn’t have a huge goal for the run, but in my mind, if I could finish under 2:30 that would be pretty awesome.  I felt like I had sea level and altitude training on my side and this was a reasonable goal.

Sometime in August we received an email saying to expect a wristband in the mail…this wristband would be your entry into the full weekend experience.  Unfortunately, there was some sort of mail debacle and I never received my wristband.  The two other girls I was running with, did however receive their bands.  Up until now, the race seemed pretty low key. 

I wasn’t worried about the wristband, until I figured out that the wristband needed to be activated in order to register for a time to pick-up your packet and a time to shop the special Lululemon SeaWheeze race store.  Registering for a “time” to pick up your packet?  Even the Rock n’Roll Las Vegas run with 60K runners didn’t require this and the SeaWheeze has only 10K runners. Now, this run is becoming a bit high-maintenance. 

The big day came when we were supposed to register for shopping and packet pick-up-ing.  At the time we were to log on to register, the website basically crashed from the volume and it took an hour for several people’s screen to refresh and allow us (me) to register.  It turned out that they didn’t limit the number of people registering for certain times so signing up early didn’t matter. (this would have been good to know before I wasted an hour of my life.)  And in reality, once we got there the registration process was super fast — except for the single file line (really??) you waited in to scan your wristband to make sure you could walk forward into registration.

Now, let’s talk about this “special Lululemon shopping” experience.  Evidently there is supposed to be limited edition Lululemon product that you can only get at the run, and you can only enter the store if you are a runner.  The weekend ended up being cold-ish and rainy so we didn’t actually wake up early to make our shopping time.  We are all for any athletic gear shopping, but none of us actually need anything…but we do need our zzzz’s.

After hearing from other runners who did partake in the shopping, we were glad we didn’t wake up early and waste our time shopping.  Evidently everything was over-priced (a jacket that is normally CAD$180 was CAD$395).  The special edition prints were loud but cute, however not worth the price (even in Canadian dollars) or the time wading through the large crowd of people. Evidently, the people who got there early were mostly shopping with the intention of reselling the items.

PreWheeze.  At the packet pick-up expo, Saje Wellness gave out a very generous gift of a full bottle of recovery bath salts.  Since I’m traveling and not with my bathtub, I was super excited to get these home and use them up.  Sadly, Canadian airport security considers bath salts a “liquid” so I had to throw the full unused bottle of bath salts out at the airport.  To their credit, Saje sent me a discount code for 50% off one item + free shipping to help me replace my lost bath salts.  I’m still pretty sad about it.

Also at the expo was hair-braiding, nail painting, temporary tattoos, and yoga.  The yoga, meditation and “vision setting” seemed cool in theory but scheduled outside and it was cold and rainy, not the type of weather I like to yoga in.  If it had been warmer or sunnier I would have partaken. Note: The percentage of women to men at this race is 90-10, not surprising, but single dudes should take note!

The start.  The half marathon is on a Saturday morning, which is a nice switch-up from the typical Sunday morning routine.  It was really nice that the convention center was open early in the morning, as everyone was able to stand inside and keep warm before the start.

Thankfully, the rain stopped while we were waiting in our start corrals.  Once I started running, the rain started coming down in a deluge.  I usually don’t mind running in the rain and so started running with a smile as water streamed down my face.  The rain kept up for about an hour and my feet were so wet, I’m sure my toes were all wrinkly.

I’ve never had the pleasure of getting blisters during a run before, but I think because my feet were so wet, I got two big blisters on my left foot at about mile 10.  The good news is I had some blister patches in my suitcase so after I got home I put one of those on and the blisters were re-absorbed in no time (ok some time, like by Monday).

One of the best cheering sections was a line of spin bike classes – they had loud music and were cheering and waving towels.  They were the best cheering section of the whole race.  Once the run route got to Stanley Park, it was super scenic and with only 4 miles to go perfect motivation to keep running at pace. 

The finish.  My official time was 2:28:08. WOOOO.  Not my fastest half by any means, but met my goal time.  The next one I’ll try to shave another 15 mins off.

The finish line was your typical cattle call after the medals — the finisher gifts were a nice surprise, a Lululemon trucker hat, Clearly Sunglasses, and the regular water & snacks.  A local restaurant was in charge of the “after run brunch” and the line was so horribly long that I skipped it.  I’m glad I didn’t wait in line for a little box of banana bread, grapes, and chia seed yogurt.  That is more like a continental breakfast than brunch.  The long line suggested actual eggs and bacon…not coffee shop fare.  A very generous offering none the less — but maybe the logistics could be better so after running 13 miles you don’t have to stand in line for over an hour.

After Party.  A big part of this event is the concert in the park Saturday night.  Runners get in free and you can purchase tickets for friends who didn’t run to join.  We had purchased tickets to join, but with the rain we opted out of the after party.  From the pictures it did look like the rain stopped and a good time was had by all.

Overall, I did enjoy the run, the route and the few benefits I took advantage of.  I would suggest skipping the shopping and the brunch — but otherwise this was a super fun event and I would do it again.

p.s. I don’t have any photos from this run yet, as my friend who didn’t run took over photographer duties, maybe at some point I’ll add my own photos to this post.