Nearly 50,000 runners turned out for the Vancouver Sun Run today, many showing support for the Boston Marathon bombing victims by wearing blue and yellow.
Every spring Vancouver turns pink and white. A phenomenal 40,000 trees that most people blindly walk past for much of the year suddenly bloom and magically brighten up the city. Continue reading →
Running a marathon requires strength of will. Running 26.2 miles is not easy. Despite weeks of training covering hundreds of kilometres, the average runner will probably be suffering in the last quarter of the race. Your body might be telling you there is nothing left, it may be screaming in pain, but your brain keeps you going. Your mind tells you to just keep putting one foot in front of another and, step by step, you make it to the finish line. Marathon runners have the will power to push on through to the end.
The contrast between them, their supporters and the coward or cowards who carried out today’s heinous attack cannot be starker. The runners have strived to achieve, their supporters backed them all the way. The cowards, on the other hand, wished only to destroy to try to provoke fear.
But I am sure they could not have picked on a more inappropriate group of people to attempt to cow. Marathon runners know how to overcome and carry on. Their supporters know how much it means to reach the finish line.
The nature of a marathon and the way it winds its way through kilometre after kilometre of crowd-thronged streets means preventing a bomb attack is almost impossible. Next week, another huge marathon takes place in London. The organisers have said they expect it to go ahead. Next month, a marathon will take place in Vancouver. Barring serious injury, I will be there on the start line. I will think of the runners in Boston and their supporters, but I will not be cowed. The terrorists have killed and they have maimed, but they will not win.
I am a big believer in education as an important nutrient for developing people and their careers. So I naturally looked into college courses when I decided it was time to add more public relations skills to the wide-ranging attributes I gained working in journalism. Continue reading →
I have been trying out the five megapixel camera on my new mobile phone. I was quite pleased with this evening shot from downtown Vancouver so I thought I’d share it. The image has been slightly cropped and stamped, but aside from that I have not altered the picture in anyway.
I finally caught the new James Bond movie Skyfall this week and I was entertained but ultimately left deflated. The movie starts brightly, like a rocket flaring into space, but soon burns out. Apart from a few glowing parts on re-entry, this Bond film falls through the sky to a dank end at the movie’s titular location.
***Spoiler caution*** ***I’ve tried to avoid giving plot details but if you haven’t seen the film…***
Remember Hurricane Sandy. It might seem weird to urge people to remember a storm that has yet to hit the eastern seaboard of the United States. But as news networks gear up to bring us stunning satellite images of the hurricane, reports from storm-blown reporters on beach fronts and dodgy phone calls from meteorological aircraft, we should not forget that this so-called “Frankenstorm” has already slammed into Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti.
Hurricane Sandy off the eastern United States of America. (Credit: NASA GOES Project)
I have just finished watching the most farcical game of American football I can remember in 20 years of watching the sport. The result will make waves in the NFL but also serves as a reminder for other sports that technology can only help, not replace, well trained officials.
For those that did not see the match up between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks, the game ended with Seattle throwing a ‘Hail Mary’ pass into the end zone in the hope of getting the touchdown they needed to win the game. Here is how the ball came down (Green Bay in white shirts and yellow helmets):
I wrote the other day about how I was inspired by Bradley Wiggins’s ambition to succeed. It would be remiss of me to let today pass without praising him for fulfilling his ambitions. Today he added Olympic gold in the London 2012 cycling road race to his Tour de France win in Paris last week. Not only did he win, but he won in style by completing the course 42 seconds faster than his nearest rival, Germany’s world champion Tony Martin.
Wiggins fully deserves all the plaudits and any accolades that come his way for his performances this year. His latest gold made him Britain’s most decorated Olympic medalist, with four golds, a silver and two bronze medals from four games. However, like a true champion, he is still not satisfied. I think it says it all that after today’s race one of his first public comments was to say:
“What’s the point of seven medals if they’re not the right colour? The main number is that is gold number four. So I have got to carry on to Rio now and make it five.”
He will be 36 when the Olympics comes to Brazil in 2016, but with ambition like that anything is possible.
