It was a personal best and a quicker finish than Vancouver Canucks legends for Vik Bains at a Vancouver marathon last weekend.
At the 2019 Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon, the Kelowna marathoner was pitted against retired Canucks Daniel and Henrik Sedin and was able to etch out a faster finish with a 1:16:51 run-time, besting the Sedin twins by nearly eight minutes.
Bains has been a Canucks fan since childhood and was excited to see two of his heroes at the race.
“It was so epic, I had no clue they would be at the (race),” Bains said.
“At the start of the line, I saw them and gave them a fist bump and said ‘let’s go boys.’ It was a surreal moment.”
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Bains and his Kelowna marathon group, the Thursday Morning Running League (TMRL), have been competing in some of the biggest marathons in the world over the past five years, including the Boston Marathon where Bains ran a sub-3 hour time in April.
Fellow TMRL racers joined Bains and the Sedins in Vancouver. Former Kelowna Rockets player Jason Deleurme and 58-year-old Rory Switzer were part of the Kelowna delegation and also recorded better times than the former NHLers at the 21-kilometre race.
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Bains said that the Sedins were very approachable and humble and that the TMRL members left quite the impression.
“I’ve tracked the Sedin’s running careers for the past couple of years, and I’ve worshipped them for nearly two decades,” said Bains.
“But at that moment they seemed more impressed by my time than the fact that they were future hall-of-famers.”
Ironically, Bains finished 22nd overall in the race, the same number that Daniel Sedin wore during his 18 seasons with the Canucks.
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