Category: Read Run Write

2018 week thirty three

Book Read:
41. The Age of Briggs & Stratton — Peter Culley

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty three — 70.2

To date: 1,731 KM

I haven’t read a lot this past week because, well, moving. It’s time consuming. But the other day, I got to kick off my runners and sit in a park on a blanket and sip La Croix lime and I grabbed a book of poems to read and the book I grabbed was a bunch of poems about two-stroke engines and some other stuff. I didn’t know Peter Culley but knew him. I was managing editor when The Capilano Review published a trio of poems he wrote with Elisa Ferrari in the “Languages” issue in 2014. I recall the shock to the Canlit community with his sudden passing in 2015. And I’m reminded of all of this because earlier this week (August 15) was his birthday and it’s weird to have friends of social media that are not longer alive but social media carries on as if they are. It is not an easy collection of poems, but it is great.

Shout out to the best little bookstore in town.

I ran a fair bit but not as far as I would have liked because, well, moving. It’s exhausting. I did not expect to long run this week, but I did have goals to run five-of-seven days and work on marathon pace. Check off five-of-seven days. Pacing focus was a pretty big X. Saturday morning was 10 miles at marathon pace that ended up being 17 KM too quick. It felt really great though. This evening I wanted to run for two hours at goal marathon pace, but after a week of packing and hauling, especially these past two days I am simply out of gas. I managed to get in 14 KM at marathon pace with a 1 KM warm up but I wasn’t going to keep that up any farther, so I tapped out. If there’s one silver lining it’s that hauling crates has forced me to do all the arm and core stuff that I normally avoid. Maybe in the new place I can forge a new routine. I already run in giant circles for hours. Picking stuff up and putting it back down doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.

2018 week thirty two

Book Read:
40. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle — Stuart Turton

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty two — 76.7

To date: 1,660 KM

I received a review copy of this book back in June, which was followed by a note a bit later in a Fight Club like tone that I was not to talk about the book until a month before publication. Which is in about a month from now. More or less. Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is one of my favourite novels. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard are two favourite philosophers. Groundhog Day is one of my favourite films. But enough about me. In 7½ Deaths Aiden Bishop is stuck in a loop he cannot escape until he solves the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. The twist is that he lives the same day seven times from seven points of view and if he cannot solve the murder then he has to start all over again, with no memory of the previous attempt. It’s a new twist on an old idea. Why 7½ deaths? It seems the half was added due to some confusion in the US around this and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo because I know how simple it is to confuse husband with death…. I liked this book’s gothic elements and its relatively fresh take on the repetition concept. Unfortunately, I just did not like Aiden Bishop very much for no particular reasons I can give without spoilers, and I found the conclusion a bit dissatisfying. That said, it a pretty great debut novel from Stuart Turton, and I will look forward to more work from him.

There’s this park in Hastings Sunrise that has, I think, one of the nicest views in the city. This photo doesn’t do it justice obviously.

Yesterday was long run number three on the road to my BQ at the Victoria Marathon in October. I set out to run 32KM and decided to mix it up a bit; rather than a long, slow, slog I would run 5KM easy and then 5KM at race pace and repeat that three times, then finish with a 1KM sprint and a 1KM jog home. But by 30KM there was nothing left to sprint 1KM so the final jog ended up being a little less under a mile. Afterwards analysis and all in all it went pretty well. My goal race pace for Victoria is 4:37/KM. My first five at race pace I managed to average 4:38/KM, second at 4:31, and the third was right on 4:37. I had no idea at the time; I felt like my pacing was all over the place. And it was to a degree, but it all averaged out in the end. So that felt good, even if not much else did. I spent a few hours afterwards thinking about my long runs last year while training for my first marathon and trying to remember if at the end of them I wanted to die then, too. If that’s the case, and I’m sure [hopeful] that it is, I seem to have blocked that part out. Eight weeks to go.