The leaves have turned

I think we can safely say that fall has now landed on Vancouver Island. The weather has been gorgeous, all the way until a few days after the half marathon. Speaking of which, I recovered well with no real soreness. This tells me I did not push myself hard enough. Oh well, anyways, the rain came in, along with the cooler temperatures and foggy mornings/late evenings. The leaves are bright orange and are slowly beginning to fall and cover the trails. In other words, it is absolutely gorgeous.

Between 2002 and 2004 I spent nearly 2 years in Australia, minus a 6 week stint home in order to renew my visa. I never noticed fall as much until I came home. Ever since then, I am constantly in awe whenever looking at the beautiful colors of fall. I wish I could post some photos with this post, but I have yet to make it out with my camera to take some. Hopefully I will get some soon though, before all the leaves are off the trees and on the ground.

I wouldn't say that I am a fan of the cold, so I am not a huge fan of late fall and early winter. The worst part of the season change though, is the darkness. Soon enough it will be dark by 4:30 and that is depressing. In turn, the hydro and gas bills goes up and that is depressing too. I could put up with the cold and the rain, provided I could have daylight at least until 7 or 8pm. I guess it is a good thing that I work 3-11:15pm as at least I have daylight to complete all my workouts. If I worked the opposite shift of 7-3:15, I would have to rush out after work to try and get most of my workout done before it became dark.

Anyways, enough about the weather, I had 2 stories about RVM that I forgot to mention. The first being dinner pre race. I went to the local grocery store and was debating what to get for dinner. As I stood in front of the freezers, I tried to remember.... "Did Sam have a microwave?" Then I thought "She must have a microwave.

So I opted to buy a frozen lasagne dinner, only to get back to Sams to find out "nope, Sam didn't have a microwave." Luckily though, she had a oven, so all it meant was that it would take 30 minutes for my dinner to heat up rather than 5 or so in the microwave. In the end, the dinner was crap, so I ate 1/3 and then had bagels and cream cheese! Note to self, learn to look at appliances before purchasing dinner!

The second story was post race. I was standing around watching the marathoner's finish and at times was nearly in tears. You see, I am one of those people who will ball my eyes out watching Ironman footage. Not because of the elites at the front, but the real heart warming stories of the regular people just struggling to finish. Their stories melt my heart.

So standing there on Sunday, I saw all of the people from the elite who won in 2:19 to everyone who finished before 3:30. In that time, I saw one guy blow chunks right near me (that didn't make me cry, but I did feel sorry for him for losing it right in front of the crowds) along with a guy who's calf cramped and he went down hard, fighting to keep going, but eventually having to take a break about 100m from the finish and then finally walk over the line.

It wasn't even him who brought the tears to my eyes, it was watching a guy right in front of me collapse as his body gave out and to have 2 of his near by marathoners stop their own race to try and lift him off the ground and carry him to the finish. Unfortunately though, his body was just too heavy and they could not carry him. Instead an official stepped in and the guy crawled to the side and took a break before finally pulling himself off the ground and walk the final 100m to the finish.

THAT had me fighting off the tears. The fact that 2 people right near him, gave up at least 30 seconds of their own race to try and help this fellow out and that this fellow wanted so badly to get over that line that he attempted to stand up and then fall to the ground multiple times before realizing he needed a break. It's these people that amaze me and they were not even the one's out there for 5 hours or longer. They aren't even ironmen or women, which is even more amazing. What can I say, I am a sucker for the people giving it their all even when their body says no more.

With that, I am back to the Canuck game where they are currently sucking it up losing 2-0 to the Calgary Flamers. Still most of the 2nd and the full 3rd period left to go. Go Canucks, Go Rypien (he is currently in a fight)