This week we’re meeting up at 6pm near City Square. I’ve created a permanent page for our group with details on the run. It’ll be updated weekly.

The regular time for our run will be 6:30pm on Wednesdays, and the location will rotate based on group membership so we’re not always starting at the same location. For this week, we’ll start in the west end near my apartment. Next week maybe it’ll be Kitsilano or somewhere else convenient to other group members.

What: Vancouver Tech/Blogger/Twitter Running Group
When: 6:30pm, Wednesday September 17th
Where: In front of the Inukshuk on the seawall, near the corner of Bidwell & Beach

All levels are welcome! I know that some people who have expressed interest are fairly new to running, while others are seasoned veterans. We’ll make sure everyone is included, no matter what their experience.

If you think you’ll be able to make it please leave a comment on this post!

One of the things I love about this city is that it’s just so easy to stay fit! And you don’t need to buy a gym membership to do so. As a starving grad student I’ve managed to find tons of inexpensive activities.

Here are some of my favourite (and frugal!) ways to stay fit in Vancouver…

1. Kayaking

This summer we’ve really been enjoying two-for-one Tuesdays at Ecomarine Kayaks. A single kayak rental usually costs $34, but on Tuesdays you can rent two for that price, which drops the price to a very reasonable $17 per person for two hours of kayaking. Foursomes can rent two double kayaks for $46 – an even better deal! We usually rent from Ecomarine’s English Bay location since it’s just steps from out apartment, but they also have locations at Jericho Beach and Granville Island.

2. Yoga

Vancouver has undoubtedly got to be the yoga capital of Canada. However, sometimes it seems like the price of a yoga class can run you almost as much as a fancy Lululemon tank top! But if you look hard enough there are some options for not-so-flush fans of yoga. Several local studios offer karma classes.

Yaletown Yoga runs two karma classes on Friday nights: hot yoga and power yoga. These classes are both by-donation, and proceeds are donated to local charities.

Unity Yoga currently offers its members a karma class on Monday nights. While this requires you to sign up for an annual membership (only $25), the class itself is free. Attendees are encouraged to bring non-perishable items for the food bank.

During the summer you can enjoy free yoga at Sunset Beach every Saturday morning, weather-permitting.

3. Running

Vancouver is blessed with a plethora of lovely places to go running. Since I live in the west end I tend to spend a lot of time on the seawall. However, there are great multi-use paths all over the place! When I lived in North Burnaby I used to frequent the Burnaby Mountain and Burnaby Lake trails.

Need some running buddies for extra motivation? Many local running stores have free run clubs. The Running Room hosts theirs on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. The Nike Runner’s Lounge in Coal Harbour also hosts a variety of free running clinics.

4. Cycling

It’s certainly no Barcelona, but Vancouver is pretty cycling-friendly for a North American city. And a decent bicycle doesn’t have to cost you a fortune in this town. Check out Our Community Bikes or The Bike Kitchen, both of which offer reasonably priced used bikes. They also offer lessons on how to do your own bike maintenance and repairs.

Once you’ve got a bike, visit Translink’s Cycling Around Greater Vancouver page. It includes maps of cycling routes in Vancouver and the surrounding area, as well as other useful info for local cyclists.

Come up with a fun cycling outing. One of my favourite rides is over the Lions Gate Bridge and around North Van, with a stop at Whole Foods on the way home for some yummy treats. To plan your route, check out the Cycling Route Planner developed by UBC’s Centre for Health and Environment Research. It uses Google Maps along with info about local bike routes to help you plan trips based on various criteria including least traffic pollution, most vegetation, or gentlest slope!

And there you have it! My mini-guide to frugal fitness in Vancouver. What’s your favourite inexpensive way to stay in shape? Let me know in the comments section!

The place was a lot nicer than I expected! They have what seems like an endless supply of water and granola bars, as well as change rooms and lockers to store your stuff while you run along the seawall. And it’s all free! Granted, you have to endure what amounts to a gigantic store-sized ad for Nike, but I’m willing to put up with a little gratuitous marketing in exchange for a free fitness class and a granola bar or two.

The lounge has various running-related clinics happening most weeknights and weekends. Tonight’s boot camp class was called “Built To Run”, and oh boy did it ever humble me! I am not an elite athlete by any stretch of the imagination but I do try to stay in shape. I’ve been pretty vigilant at keeping up with my swimming, running, and biking lately.  Sadly, all of that exercise apparently made no difference when faced with trainer Mike from mode athletics. We did sprints, stairs, and a circuit workout, all in under an hour! I suspect I’ll be feeling that tomorrow. Nevertheless, I’m planning to return for more torture next Tuesday.

1. Taken a trip to Europe (Barcelona and Florence) and
2. Run in the 2008 Sun Run

I haven’t managed to get my photos from my Europe trip on Flickr yet so I’ll leave the trip report for a later post. Instead, today you get to hear about the much less interesting Sun Run.

This was my second year doing the run and I went into it with the goal of having a fun time and finishing in under an hour; With almost 60,000 people doing the race I knew I was definitely not going to get my best 10k time! Kate, Deb, and I started near the front of the “green” group (two other groups, the elite runners and the “yellow” group, started ahead of us). While we waited for our wave to start we grooved to music by Derek’s band, The Neurotics, who have been playing at the Sun Run start line for 15 years!

Our wave got off to a slow start. With such a large mob of people running at very varied paces I barely made the 2km mark in under 12 minutes. Yikes! Around the same time I began to wish I had taken advantage of one of the many porta-potties before the race had started. When we hit Beach Avenue, around the 3km mark, I decided to make a pit stop (they had porta-potties located at various points along the race route!) and lost a precious few minutes. I was going to have to work really hard to finish in under an hour.

Luckily I had the final 2/3 of the run to make up for my lost time and I pushed myself the whole way, stopping to walk for a few seconds at two water stations, but otherwise running the entirety of the time. It wasn’t until I passed the 9km mark and my watch read just over 54 minutes and I knew I would make it. The chip times haven’t been posted on the Sun Run website yet, but my time should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 59:30. Just barely under one hour.

All in all, it was a fun run, and it reminded me that I need to get in shape for triathlon season! My next race (North Shore Sprint Tri) is in just under a month. Time to hit the pool to train.

I’m attempting to get back into running this month, and signing up for a race often helps give me that extra little push to get out and get training. So I’m thinking of registering for the boxing day 10-miler in Hamilton since I’ll be in town visiting my parents over the holidays. The idea of running in winter-y weather is a bit scary, though. We don’t get really cold winters in Vancouver so I’m not used to running in ice and snow, and I can just picture myself hitting an icy patch on the route and going flying!

On the bright side, I got this fancy schmancy new monitor which has greatly increased my work productivity when I’m at home, I had a great weekend trip to Whistler a few weeks ago, and I feel like I have some direction as far as my PhD research is concerned. So, life could be worse!