Calgary Half Marathon (with Stanley) May 29, 2016

Saturday morning: Kev, I have a REALLY GREAT idea!  

Remember the last time we made the Stanley Cup Finals and drove to Jasper with the cup?  We should do something cool this year...

...Sunday morning 5am, car is loaded.  Since we're parking this year it's perfect for the grand cup plan.  Before we strap it onto Kev, we run in to meet up with my fellow Calgary Marathon ForeRunners.  What an all around awesome group of people!

Me, Jenny, Tina, Donny, Kaella, Krissie, Rachel and Sarah in front!

Okay, ready to go?

We edge into the back of the pack as we really have no idea what's going to happen and also don't want to bash anyone off the face.  I'm not wearing a Garmin as per the initial plan. The first 5k goes a bit like this; are you okay? Is the cup okay? Is it swinging around? Can you run okay?  Yes, yes, no, I'm fine, stop asking me.

Ah Elvis!  Everything is good with the world.

Everyone is being very awesome on the course, we get a ton of comments and high fives.  We're running through Bridgeland and a girl from Pittsburgh comes over to say hello.  Well that's pretty cool.  Ah the underpass again, and off toward 17th.  Truth be told I had expected the cup to be rolling down the street on its own by now.  Winning!

There are some lovely shady parts here, we pause to re-inflate Stanley a little at 9k and I just about keel over, that is HARD after all the running.  We turn north toward Kensington and I spot a friend.

Look! It's a big.....chicken!

Kensington is lovely, this is such an energetic part of the course. We have a full on sunshiny summery day happening out here.  As soon as we turn toward Memorial we stop to top up the cup and a passing runner yells 'come on, you can do it Stanley!'  I am very helpfully tweeting this while Kev is re-inflating.

Onward to the Memorial Dr turnaround, I barely notice this bit as for some reason I'm just insanely happy with the running.  It's easy to tell as I'm singing along to Katy Perry (Firework, sorry).  Cupdate (see what I did there) still secure.

It gets a little harder for me after 16k but really who am I to feel bad when Kev is running in a hockey jersey with a cup strapped to his back....on his birthday?  Was that just a Scottish Pipe Band we passed or am I dreaming?  (It's Brigadoon!  No really, it was actually there).

We head back through the East Village, there's always a fantastic cheer station here and this year is no exception.  Love the bus with guys dancing on the roof, LOVE!  There are a huge number of high fives here, Calgary has been absolutely brilliant supporting us today!

Okay, stop. 1.5 km to go, it's time to set the cup free.  Let's bring 'er home.  I can barely keep up with Kev as he and Stanley book it to the finish.

We all made it, even the Chris Kunitz signature from 2009.  What a day.  It is scorchio as we sit in the Grandstand watching all the finishers come in.  Drinks for everyone!

And chips...

Let's Go Pens!  Now we can relax until game 1 Monday night.

*As a ForeRunner I was given a race entry for 2016, however all opinions, thoughts,  feelings and NHL team affiliations are entirely my own.