I got hit by a car this morning.
I was doing my run, heading west on Hastings. I came to the corner of Commercial street with the light mostly green for me; it was counting down that it would change soon. I probably sped up to make it. A car appeared and tried to turn right in front of me. The driver was looking to the left, so she did not see me. A building blocked visibility, so we didn’t have warning of what was about to happen. When the car appeared I yelled caution; I had the right of way and assumed she would stop.
She did not.
It was 7:36 AM. She was in a white Lexus RX350.
So suddenly I had a moving car in my path and no time to stop. The side view mirror hit me and I got thrown to the ground. Fortunately, the mirror was a collapsable one, so it didn’t hit me too hard.
For a brief moment I thought the car would do a hit-and-run, so I yelled at it “You ran over me!” But it was just pulling around so the driver could get out and check on me.
I was a little shook up, but nothing felt broken. I had a bit of a scrape on my left eg, but that was the most obvious injury. We exchanged information. She was apologetic. But then I was too; I said sorry for yelling at her when I thought she was driving away. I’m Canadian; it comes naturally.
Afterwards I felt good enough to continue my run. It was about 4km home. It totally wrecked my pace, but I was still moving well.
My left foot felt like it has gotten squashed. As near as I can tell her tire ran over my foot. And the scrape on my leg was actually from the moving tire.
I still felt fine when I got home, so I went to work.
After half a day there, I noticed some new aches and pains. My left wrist hurt if pressed. My back felt achy. So I took off for a bit in the afternoon to go to the “City Centre Urgent & Primary Care Centre”. I was seen very quickly there, and the doctor was of the opinion that I had some bruises and strained muscles. I should be fine but watch for any changes. By this time I had forgotten about my foot; it had stopped hurting so I didn’t even mention. I wonder if my shoes are still good?
And yes, I did check, I can go running tomorrow.

It’s been a busy weekend.
Yesterday in the morning I did a run in Vibram FiveFingers. These forced me to use different muscles for running. Of course I had a good reason to go slower, because there was no padding on my feet. But now my legs ache and walking hurts.
In the evening we went out and had an early dinner at Legendary Noodle and then went to the beach. I found a good spot to sit and read. This was part of a plan, because at 7:45 there was an airshow; a pilot with a stunt plane did about fifteen minutes of tricks. After it was over we walked home. An hour later we went right back to the same place to see the evening fireworks. (It’s a half hour walk each way.)
In that time, things had changed significantly. We thought we would be able to get in as easily as Wednesday evening, but it was a lot busier. Security basically closed off the beach because it was full. We had to stand in a crowd of people behind the wire barriers to see the show.
I don’t think the show was as good as on Wednesday, but the finish was better.
Today I got up early and did a run that I THOUGHT wasn’t going to be too long, but it ended up being 23km. My legs hurt but I wanted to take the opportunity to sneak into the Port of Vancouver and run around some of the streets there. I had been told it is possible to get in on the Sundays when security isn’t as tight. The rumours were true and I got a bunch of new streets.
It is fascinating back there. There are beautiful, uninterrupted views of the North Shore and huge ships being loaded and unloaded.
I continued onto the Trans Canada Trail, which for some reason had a fence closed on it. It wasn’t impossible to hop it, but it was precarious when you can’t trust your aching legs.
Since I was in a new area I did a few more streets than I had expected, which caused the total run to be a bit long.
At noon we were out seeing the Pride Parade. We were there for two hours; there were a lot of people, corporations and organizations marching. The highlight was seeing the Prime Minister there. It was still going on when we left. It had all started to blend together so we decided we had had enough.
Then off to Sunset beach to see the after-parade shows. We grabbed a bunch of free stuff and went home.
We took a much needed nap.

Yesterday we had a barbecue at work. I tried to bring some food, but the stuff I brought was not actively eaten. So I got to return the chips to the store I brought them from.
As usual, there was a lot of food at the barbecue. For the past year I am always hungry, so I was able to sate my appetite for awhile. We have a good variety of foods and some of my co-workers are very good at cooking. I got to try a bit of sous-vide steak along with some salmon. There was also the requisite burgers and hotdogs. And a lot of sides.
Cherries seem to be very common here so several people brought those. (I may have installed myself near them during the party.) There was a period a few weeks ago where Catalina and I purchased 13lbs of cherries in a 24 hour period. (We were forced to buy a lot due to parking validation requirements.) They were very good.
It continued today with some of the leftovers still waiting to be eaten. In a taste test comparison, I think I like the double chocolate cookies from Costco better than their one-bite brownies. I am surprised by this discovery.
I miss being able to hold a barbecue for my friends at my place. But Vancouver does not allow me to live near friends, or have a big enough place to throw a party.