Books Read
21. All This Burning Earth – Sean Bonney
22. Our Death – Sean Bonney
Kilometres Ran
week twenty one – 54.4
week twenty two – 55.6
2020 to date: 1,390 KM
I guess if you’re going to read a dead white dude in the midst of the violence erupting over yet another PoC getting murdered in cold blood, in broad daylight, by a white police officer while his police officer colleagues stood by and watched, then Sean Bonney is an okay pick. I am so tired of white people clutching their pearls on the sidelines lamenting the violent response. I want to burn down TELUS when my internet fails. Hell, I want to smash my computer when the internet takes too long to load. I cannot image my rage over something that actually matters. I utterly, completely take it for granted that I will not get murdered for being white. I am horrified that anyone doesn’t share that privilege. I’m horrified that it’s a privilege. Sean Bonney was an English poet whom I was unfamiliar with until friends were lamenting online at his untimely death in November last year. His voice is radical left and it resonates so loudly right now it is deafening. All This Burning Earth collects some of his short and long poems as well as a few essays and letters. Our Death is his most recent collection published by the anarcho-publishers AK Press published under Commune Editions. It is currently available on their website for free as a PDF here –>
communeeditions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Bonney_Our_Death_digital_galley.pdf
Or you can buy a physical copy through the link at the top of this page. PDF of All This Burning Earth linked above too. (I don’t think there’s another format, but correct me if I’m wrong because I want a physical copy and cannot find one anywhere.) I am still reading and rereading. You should too. But now I’m going to read some PoC for the next bit. You should too.
On Wednesday I took a shot at running a new personal best 5K on the rolling hills of Big Aus up at UBC for the first of the Mile2Marathon Virtual Race Series. That wasn’t the plan. The plan was to run 5K on the flats around the Stanley Park Seawall. I had drawn up a few options for out-and-back or point-to-point and I asked Coach Kevin which he suggest, and he replied Big Aus. I am better on rolling hills than on flat, but I had never done the UBC loop. Rob Watson posted a modified route and I set out on bicycle Tuesday at lunch to scope it out so that I wouldn’t be going into it completely green. There’s a bit of a climb for the first mile, then it rolls through the following two with the last more down than up. Wednesday morning was calm and clear and I wanted to get ahead of the heat however my stomach did not want to cooperate, which delayed my start. So thank gawd for virtual races, I guess? At about 8:30 I was off and the first mile to the crest went according to plan, then the second one too. I knew the last section from Allison down onto Chancellor should be the fastest but by now I was really feeling the pace. I slogged through the last half kilometre and clicked off my watch at 5.02 KM. Strava and Garmin awarded me 19:02 (3:48 / km pace) for 5 K and a new fastest one yet. I had wanted to go under 19 minutes but overall I’m pretty please with a new, albeit unofficial, personal best. Just barely. My previous best was 19:03 chip time (19:04 gun) on the WestVanRun 5K at the beginning of March, but Strava and Garmin both said that course was short. Regardless, I’m pretty confident that Wednesday is the fastest 5K I’ve run yet, official or not. It was fun to finish up early and watch the results from others roll in through the rest of the week and this weekend. I had a bit of taste in my mouth for the 3K option but decided against it. That is until this morning about 1 KM into my Sunday recovery run after a pretty hard 20 KM progression workout yesterday I though that I would just hammer three and see what happens. So as I paused just past Brockton Lighthouse on the Stanley Park Seawall, did a couple warm-up drills, and went out hard for 3K finishing a bit past Lions Gate Bridge, then jogged the rest of the way around and back home. Checked my watch; I ran those 3K in 11:12.9 (3:44 / km pace) and a few new segment PRs on the Seawall, and wondering what if…. Maybe next time.