VANCOUVER — Vancouver ran for Boston Sunday.
So did plenty of non-Vancouverites among the 48,196 participants, including Victoria’s Clifford Childs, the top Canadian finisher among the men. Childs came in sixth and won $2,500.
Yellow and blue hair ribbons were knotted to ponytails, runners wore Boston Red Sox caps, bright blue socks and even Boston Bruins jerseys.
One runner had a hand-lettered sign on her back: “I’m running for Martin,” a reference to the bombing’s youngest victim, Martin Richard, whose life was remembered at a mass in Boston on the same day.
Paula Hillier of Langley wore her Boston Marathon 2013 shirt, a blaze of yellow defiance.
Hillier was in Boston for her first Boston marathon just six days ago, and was just 10 minutes from finishing when the bombs went off.
A sudden quiet was how she described the moment everything stopped.
“I didn’t hear the din of the crowd anymore. Then I heard a helicopter. It was silent, except for the sirens ...”
The news of a bombing quickly passed among the spectators and runners.
“A woman beside me was crying, my husband and children were at the finish line. I can’t get in touch with them.”
Hillier said she plans to return to Boston next year and finish her race.
Sunday’s event, which went off without a hitch, was a positive note in a difficult week for Hillier and other runners.
Thousands of the participants who took to the streets for the 29th annual Sun Run wore blue and yellow, to show support for Boston.
The Sun Run experienced a spike in late registrations, with 1,300 signing up in the days following the Boston booming. The Sun Run committed a donation of $10 per late registration to the Boston One Fund, a charity benefiting those most affected by the Boston bombing.
Organizers estimate at least $15,000 was raised through those efforts.
Dwayne Lucas also sported the Boston yellow and blue as he ran with a group of 28 co-workers from Cascade Aerospace in Abbotsford. Friends of his had been in Boston as well.
“We wanted to share our strength, it’s amazing. It’s been spectacular, all the people,” he said as he surveyed the exuberant crowd at B.C. Place.
It was an all-ages crowd, including David Gallagher, 8, of Surrey, who ran the full 10-kilometre race. His father, whose main exercise is dog-walking, ran just a few steps behind him.
David, who trained with friends at school in Surrey, said he had a bit of a challenge at the nine-km mark, but “just loved seeing all the people running together.”
The elite runners started the event, and crossed the finish line while waves of fun runners were still getting started.
Paul Kimugul, of Nairobi, Kenya, captured the men’s elite division title, winning the race in 29:04. Kimugul finished 13 seconds ahead of Ian Burrell of Tuscon, Arizona, taking home prize money of $3,000. Third place went to Kedwin Kaitany, also of Kenya, who finished in 29:36.
In the women’s division, Port Moody’s Natasha Fraser won for the second year in a row, crossing the finish line in 32:42.
“The crowd was amazing,” she said at the finish line. “It was an awesome day.... I’m so happy to be here. Thank you, Vancouver.”
Like so many other, Fraser as running for the victims of Boston. “We were all running of them today,” she said.
Lindsey Scherf of Chapel Hill, Nova Scotia, was the second woman to cross the line, with a time of 33:01. Toronto’s Lioudmila Kortchaguina took third place at 33:25.
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