Banff, Canada and Melissa's Road Race

After we moved into our new apartment in Detroit, Geoff and I had a few days off to buy house things, unpack and get our place in order. Thank goodness because this was a lot more than we thought it was going to be. Apparently when you have more room, you need more stuff to fill it with.

After those few days, we hopped on a plane to Edmonton to visit his family. The main goal of the trip was a weekend in Banff where Chantal (Geoff's sister-in-law), her brothers wife Andrea and myself were all running Melissa's Road Race. We signed up for the 22K which is a half-marathon. We got in on Thursday and Friday we left to make the drive to Banff.


We stopped on the way in at some small town to grab ice cream! I had Maple and it was amazingly good!



The next morning we got up bright and early to get ready for the race. Unlike the races in Cincinnati, this one started at 10am which was nice.
We ate some oatmeal and headed into town and to the starting line. There were 2 parts to the race, the 10K started running first and then we all lined up for the 22K.





Then the gun went off and off we all went. The scenery on the run was breath-taking. Snow capped mountains, turquoise lakes, a waterfall, bright yellow trees...





The course was hilly and it was windy so the time I was first aiming for went right out the window. It's ok, I focused instead on enjoying the run and taking in all the scenery. Well, until I hit the last 4K which was down and then back up a never ending hill... I was glad to finally finish!





The next morning, us girls got up bright and early for our "recovery day". We headed off to the Fairmont Hotel for a morning massage and dips in the mineral pool and hot tubs. I'm going to be completely honest... the race was fun but this day was so much better! We all decided that it was totally worth all the pain of the run just for this morning of pampering. The Spa in the hotel was the nicest spa I have ever been too!!! I felt extremely pampered.

We finally dragged ourselves out of there and met everyone for Sunday brunch before driving back to Edmonton.
A few last shots on our walk back to the car.





We had a fantastic time, I loved Banff and I ran my first international race! Not a bad little vacation! ;)