Event type Road Official site Vancouver Sun Run | Established 1985 Distance 10,000 m | |
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Date Third or fourth Sunday in April Location Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Course records Men: 27:31 (1996)
Joseph Kimani
Women: 30:58 (2006)
Isabella Ochichi | ||
City lights 2014 vancouver sun run
The Vancouver Sun Run, sponsored by The Vancouver Sun newspaper, is a 10-kilometre road running event held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, each year on the third (sometimes the fourth) Sunday in April since 1985. It is one of the largest road races in North America.
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Get ready for the vancouver sun run 2016
Attendance
The first Vancouver Sun Run in 1985 started with approximately 3,700 participants, and has grown significantly since:
Race details
The primary mandate of the Sun Run is to "promote health, fitness and community spirit and to support amateur athletics". In conjunction with the run a large number 13 week clinics (including Nordic walking, walking, learn to run and run faster) are conducted at community centres throughout the province.The run is not a charity event; however, the organizers claim over $1.1 million in race proceeds have been donated to charities since 1985. It includes a relatively small number of competitive elite runners, a wheelchair race, and numerous other categories of participants ranging from running enthusiasts to parents walking with their children in strollers. The various categories start the race at different times, with the wheelchair and elite runners first, and slower runners following in numerous waves. For several years, individual runners have had their times recorded by an electronic chip attached to their shoes, which triggers a timer at the starting line and again at the finish.
The current route of the race begins on Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver, with the starting line just west of the intersection of Burrard Street, and ends outside BC Place Stadium after guiding runners through the downtown peninsula and parts of the Kitsilano and Fairview neighbourhoods south of False Creek. The run organizing committee hires numerous entertainers to perform along the route and in the stadium at the end of the race, including local humour/cover band The Neurotics, who have played at the starting line every year since 1995.
Hundreds of volunteers also assist with organizing, preparing for, and coordinating the race, including amateur radio operators involved in ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) programs from the Lower Mainland.
In the aftermath of the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon, Vancouver Sun Run race organizers have petitioned runners to wear blue and yellow, the official Boston Marathon colours, in solidarity and remembrance of those killed and injured in Boston a week prior.
Race organizers have noted a surge in race registration in the few days after the Boston Marathon explosions as the Sun Run anticipates one of the highest turnouts in its 29-year history.
Past winners
Charity
Since 1997, only one dollar from each Sun Run registration has been contributed to Raise-a-Reader, a national literacy campaign. The campaign went national in 2001, and has since raised over $10 million.
Sun Run proceeds also benefit B.C. amateur athletics through the Achilles International Track And Field Society and The Vancouver Sun Jerome International Track Classic, an annual track and field event that gives local athletes the chance to compete against some of the world’s best in their own province.
Race dates
The race is held on the third Sunday of April each year (but the fourth Sunday in 2014 (Easter is third Sunday in April, 2014)).