Running in Vancouver, BC: The race that wasn’t

After fueling up on an incredible meal last night at the Banana Leaf, GD and I were up and at ’em this AM, ready to take on our fellow birders in the All-Out Ostrich Uproar 5k.

We made drinking coconut water and a berry sangria extra romantic by entangling the straws. You know, because it is important to make drinking romantic.

After a moment of dismay when GD realized he left his running shorts at the hotel in Bellingham, he rallied and decided that khaki’s with a belt were just as good an option and we were off! We excitedly jogged to the start where we found…

Huh. Do birders hate running just as much as I suspected??

I didn’t expect a huge crowd but I definitely expected some crowd! After giving it a few minutes we accepted that something must have gone wrong but the beautiful morning relieved us of any disappointment. We decided we’d still salvage the run and had an awesome jaunt around the campus where we mixed looking and listening at/to towhees, bushtits (yes, non-birders, that is an actual bird name!), yellow warblers and puzzled over juvenile sparrow plumage. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t often have the pleasure of running with my hubby, so this was better than an Ostrich 5k any day!

The Kashi/GD race course was a gorgeous combination of sight-seeing and birding – we checked out the Museum of Anthropology (def going back later), the Nitobe Memorial Garden and the Main Mall of the campus.

We declared ourselves the overall male and female winners and accepted our award of birds singing all around us.

Mystery solved: My jet-lagged brain either thought today was Thursday or that I misread it to say Friday. Either way, whoopsie!!

So the race was a bust, but the morning was not. It is gorgeous here, can’t wait to explore more!