Up where the mountain goats roam

Got up at 6.45am and thought "it will be cold outside and I don't have to run that stupid route because it's stupid" and went back to bed.
Called Michael who lamented how hard the course was and how the clinic leaders said we needed to do it to build our base. I said "I have a base" and he said "I thought I did, but I don't". So then I started thinking "am I deluding myself? Is he challenging me?". It was such a sterling day that I decided fine, I would do the blasted route.
First off? The Lions where pristine and austere and majestic in the sun. An absolutely stunning way to start off any run, though I didn't even consider my run started until I made it the end of Edgemont (3+ miles) because that was where I had to turn and run up Capilano Road. For a while my heart rate was pretty high and I thought I was going to vomit up my cinnamon flavoured Life cereal onto my running shoes, but that was less about my physical fitness and more about me eating too much and then running too soon.
Weird, fun bit: one of the streets I passed was called Mapleridge Drive. Come on! That's weird.
It wasn't an easy run, but halfway into it I wasn't finding it as hard as Michael had led me to believe, and then I saw it. I saw this towering hill that looked as though it was 90 goddamn degrees straight up and I couldn't even see the top of it because it curved at the top.
I thought "yeah, the clinic owners hate us".
So while I approached this mammoth hill I thought about other hills I've conquered: 29th. Keith Road. Whatever that side street was in Kerrisdale where I used to do hill repeats that one summer as little bugs became glued to my sweat soaked body and people in homes worth laughable amounts stared out the window at me and said things to their husbands like "Stanton III, why is this ruddy faced girl running past our exquisitely manicured lawn repeatedly?".
I was finally in the mindset that I was going to best this hill when, as I approached it, I saw that I wasn't supposed to run up it, I was supposed to turn right and run down the road at the base of it.
I ran up two blocks of it anyways. It was really ridiculous, but the view at the top was amazing. I could see the British Properties (likely because I was almost on the same level as them). The sun was beating down on me and I knew I had a three mile downhill ahead of me.
Screamed down to the bottom of Mosquito Creek, dodging dogs and disoriented Sunday strollers, ground my way up Larson, burned down Jones, meandered along Keith and then up St. Georges.
I felt good. 10.3 miles with some of the most fluctuating elevation changes I've ever had to deal with and I brought it in in 1:25 which works out to an 8.19 mile. 5 seconds slower per mile than my last marathon which had almost no elevation change whatsoever.
Base? Yes. I have my base.
Then we all went for lunch and Big D had salad with his veggie burger and Michael had some healthy fish dish and I had a chicken burger with bacon on it and fries and two beers and that was kind of a mistake, not unlike the giant bowl of cereal this morning.
But I do so love Life.