Just a quick post to inform those readers who were curious about the status of our marathon training…my sister Janis and I completed the Vancouver Marathon this Sunday in a time of 3:53:49, over 6 minutes faster than our goal of four hours.

We had been chronicling our progress over at our marathon blog, which is where you can go for the full story. Also, we have already uploaded several photos of the day; if you like you can watch a Flickr slideshow of them (new Flickr slideshow interface!).

Thank you very much for all of the support; the short little posts that I have written about this quest have always received the most comments of any of my posts on any of my blogs. Special thanks to Shane Spargo in Australia, who followed our story from all the way across the world.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that last year I committed to running the Vancouver Marathon this year; while I am still 30.

Well, my sister moved back to Vancouver this winter, and decided to train with me. Early on, she made the wise decision to go the distance (the full 26.2 miles, it hurts just to type it) and enter the race with me as well.

So while we’ve been training, I’ve been “blogging out loud” while she absorbs whatever she can about marketing and social media. And she’s a quick study. I had been waiting for her to decide on her own that it was time for her to start a blog, and on Saturday while we were bouncing along the trail finishing 13 miles, she announced she was ready.

To my surprise, with very little help (at all, really) from me, she built and launched her own Wordpress.com site: Janisbehan.wordpress.com.

While we were still on the trail, we also decided that we were foolish not to have been blogging about our marathon experience all along, and we subsequently also launched our official marathon blog: Teambehan.wordpress.com.

To make me even prouder, my little sister beat me to it, and even wrote the first post.

So subscribe yourself, (I’ll have to get a proper Feedburner feed for it if I get time) and follow our adventures as we get closer to our goal of finishing our first marathon. We could really use the support.

The Race is May 6th, and I’m going to make it happen.

Today my sister and I ran our first half-marathon-distance training run. (13mi, or 22k for us Canucks) I wanted to run a picture of us running, but nobody wants to get up that early to take a shot of us.

My knees hurt, but I will soldier on.

2007 is going to be a great year, I can just sense it.

For one thing, my sister moved to town, and that means more quality time with family, plus a consistent running partner to keep me in line while training for the Vancouver Marathon this May. Call that my New Year’s resolution, but longtime TTF readers will recall I committed to this several months ago, and after a (admittedly light) season of occasional runs here in Vancouver last year, I’m ready for the real deal this year. The big one. I can feel the burn already, and I’m still a bit “festive” from the wine at dinner. This should be interesting.

Also of note: I got a new camera (yeaaaaah!) from my wife for Christmas, an Olympus Evolt E-500. And I’m loving it. Two seconds out of the box and it took me right back to my days as a sports shooter, firing away like mad on my 35mm SLR hoping I got the puck (or soccer ball, etc.) in the frame. I’m back behind the lens again, and this time it’s not a betacam, DV or a video camera of any kind, but my beloved still photography. I missed it, so prepare for an increase in the number of shots coming through my feed (pardon the duplicate, in this case). But sentimentality aside, it will have great business applications as well. Add photography to the list of services available from your favorite boutique marketing firm

Still, since Vancouver has been a rainy mess (surprise!) the past few days, I haven’t been able to snap much of anything that’s ‘flickr worthy.’ So I’ve defaulted to the obvious cop-out in times like these, where the first shot has to tell a certain story…and so here is a shot of my new camera, by my new camera:

Did I mention how terrific Mrs. Behan is at giving Christmas presents?

Have a terrific and prosperous New Year, all. I’m back in the saddle, so posting should resume just as sporadic and inconsistent as ever. Cheers!