Published Friday, March 21 2008 in The Province.Crying is allowed at marathons, and even if she won’t be running the 42-kilometre course that makes up the 2008 BMO Bank of Montreal Vancouver Marathon, Janet Anderson is sure to shed some tears.

“I think it’s going to be pretty emotional, in fact it already is,” said Anderson on Thursday, after earlier announcing that she was stepping down as race director following the May 4 event after a nine-year run in which she has been a driving in force in helping to make Vancouver’s marathon the largest in Canada.

Anderson, 46, and her husband Tim Rippin, who have maintained residences in Vancouver and Hawaii, are moving to island paradise.

And although Anderson will be back in the Lower Mainland frequently for other work-related projects, she knows it’s going to be hard leaving the family of volunteers with whom she has worked so closely for almost a decade.

“I think on race day, when I look up and see the clock ticking and the word ‘Finish’ up there, it’s going to be hard,” she continued.

In working to make the race as relevant as possible to as many levels and ages of runners, Anderson has helped launch a kids Marafun Program, a team-relay event and a new eight-kilometre run, all of which give the event a far broader appeal than when she first took the job in 1999.

“If we were a convention, then we would be the largest convention for out-of-town guests that the city sees each year,” said Anderson, who noted that Vancouver’s status as a destination city has allowed race organizers to take full advantage of its international marketing possibilities.

“So we are always trying to educate people about that, and it’s something that we are all so proud of.”

Yet she knows that an event of the scale of Vancouver’s marathon doesn’t continue to grow each year without its most valuable resource: Volunteers.

“We have a great crew, and every one is a volunteer who donates a tremendous amount of time,” she said.

The race will no doubt continue to prosper in future years with that spirit as the driving force, but Anderson can smile and know she did her part to help make Vancouver’s the largest marathon in the country.

“It is going to be ‘Aloha,’” she laughed.

“I am riding off into the Hawaiian sunset, and I’ll see where those roads will take me. But this race has really gotten my heart and soul.”