Vancouver Sun Run - Race Details

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 their time 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.