Tag: BC Athletics

2019 week twenty four

Book Read
24. When Running Made History – Roger Robinson

Kilometres Ran
week twenty four – 41.2

2019 to date: 1,162 KM

I read and wrote about this book last fall just before I ran the Victoria Marathon, after meeting Roger Robinson at Forerunners on West 4th while out on his book tour. (A book tour of running shops, go figure.) What struck me then, and having a bit of a reread now, are the bits about running’s connection with charity.

The impulse among the majority of runners to run for a cause other than, or greater than, their own result has brought measurable enrichment to the work of many charities and thus society.

Roger Robinson

As my personal situation has improved I’ve been able to give back to the arts and culture community, which is easy if you’re able. It’s a lot harder to ask other people to join in. I learned pretty quickly that I’d never make it as a development officer or a fundraiser, and yet I’m currently trying to figure out how to ask my social circle and beyond to support The Capilano Review just because I’m running twenty-one point one kilometres in a week’s time, along with 5,000 other people many of whom are likely asking their social circle to support their charity of choice. While it does seem a bit weird to choose a running race to raise money for a pauperous literary arts organization, it was around the time that I took on their managing editor role that I gave this whole jogging thing a try. So for me, it seems, the two are rather tied. In timeline at least. Since I left The Capilano Review office, they continued to bring me a certain amount of enrichment. I always look forward to the writers and artists that I’ll be introduced to, always exceptionally curated, and often stuff that I wouldn’t otherwise see. If you’re familiar with their work, I hope that you’ll consider making a donation in support of my run next Sunday.

USE THIS LINK TO DONATE

If you’ve never head of The Capilano Review, I hope that you’ll check them out. Maybe attend an event, or purchase a subscription, or just get lost in their massive archive of work that was recently posted online in collaboration with Simon Fraser University Library.

Mile2Marathon train on the track at Swargard Stadium for Chase the Pace at the Pacific Distance Carnival. Photo by Debra Kato.

On Thursday I made my fifth attempt to run five kilometres in under 20 minutes, this time at Mile2Marathon’s sixth-annual Chase the Pace 5,000 on the track at Swangard Staduim in Burnaby. The event was in collaboration with the first Pacific Distance Carnival put on by BC Athletics, Mile2Marathon, and the BC Endurance Project. The evening started with a few 1,500 metre foot-races and a wheelchair heat, then four heats of 5,000 metres with pacers. I registered with the goal to run 19:59, which put me in the 7:55 p.m. heat where I and about 30 others chased three different pacers. The gun went off and I tried to get in behind pacer Laurel Richardson (19:55) but got stuck in the crowd for the first of 12 and a half laps of the 400 metre track. The field started to thin after the first couple laps and I managed to find a rhythm that felt ok but not great. By the eighth lap I’d slipped quite a bit and knew that I probably wasn’t going to be able to catch the pacer. There was a cluster of us that were right on the cusp of 20 minutes and we traded leading a few times. On the second last straight I remember M2M coach Rob Watson telling us we only had about a minute left and to give it hell. I didn’t have much to give but I managed a bit of a sprint coming out of the final turn. Ryan Chilibeck from East Van Run Crew was in front of me and I tried to catch him but he crossed the finish a few tens-of-a-second ahead of me. Perfectly ahead of me, if his intention was to block my view of the clock. Not that it mattered. I knew that I was over 20 minutes. Strava said I ran 5 KM in 19:53 but my Garmin said my run was 20:12. I checked the results board and my official time was 20:10:97. Not near my goal, and third in terms of attempts. It’s not a great result but, unless you count running loops of a park in Paris, I’ve done just two speed workouts since running the BMO Marathon at the beginning of May. While I do feel a bit like it was a missed opportunity, I’m really rather pleased with just how well it went.

With Philip Finlayson (who’d just run a 17:40 5,000) getting ready to cheer on the 10,000 Canadian championships at the Pacific Distance Carnival. I bet he loves this photo by Debra Kato almost as much as I do.

After the 5,000 metre heats were complete, the Pacific Distance Carnival main events got underway, with Canadian 10,000 metre championships. The 25 laps of the track saw Ben Flanagan finish in 28:37 in the men’s race, followed by current record holder Natasha Wodak finishing in 32:09 holding off B.C. 5K champ Sarah Inglis, and Canadian half and full marathon record holder Rachel Cliff. The whole event was a lot of fun both to participate and to watch. I look forward to next year.

2019 week eleven

Book Read
11. Transcription – Kate Atkinson

Kilometres Ran
week eleven – 60.5

2019 to Date: 479

I liked this book a lot more than I liked A God in Ruin, which I did not like very much at all but I at least finished it, ahem, but I did not like it nearly as much as I liked Life After Life, which is one of my favourite books in ever and that I’m a bit afraid to reread because I wonder if it really is as good as I remember it being. I still believe that it’s one of the more interesting takes on Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence – much more interesting than, say, Russian Doll on Netflix, unfortunately. But this is supposed to be about Transcription. The book follows Juliet Armstrong, at 18 years old in 1940 London with the Second World War raging in Europe, she is recruited into a super-secret branch of MI5 helping to spy on home-grown Nazi sympathizers within British society. Think Killing Eve but more typing and less stabbing. I thoroughly enjoyed watching (reading?) Juliet go from naive teen to strong independent woman who gives zero fucks. It’s a good enough novel. Worth the effort at least.

This weekend I got my third shot to break 20:00 in the 5K this year and I was pretty confident going into it, not least for the fact that the course didn’t cross train tracks (see 2019 week nine if you missed that one…). Anyway, I glanced at the course and saw Stanley Park but I didn’t actually look at the course until an acquaintance online suggested it was a tough one to be chasing a new personal best let alone pull off something miraculous (i.e., sub 19:00, which was my super (read: stupid) long-shot goal). I just assumed that the course followed the Stanley Park Seawall (read: dead flat) but it ran along Stanley Park Drive, which doesn’t have mountains, but has some pretty significant rolling hills for a 5K sprint. The race doubled as the BC Athletics championship and there was a pretty impressive elite field on hand, which was cool. Us weekenders and once-a-yearers started about 30 seconds after the elite field. I’d corralled myself where I thought I should be given some of the familiar faces around and ahead of me, but once the gun went off it became abundantly clear that a lot of people did not know or care how chip timing works. As such, I spent for first 50 metres or so trying not to run people over. My first kilometre was good once I got some space and some rhythm and I crossed one mile in 6:10 but then the little hill up to the Brockton Lighthouse and then again up at Lumberman’s Arch took their toll. I crossed 4K with sub 20:00 in my grasp but just couldn’t hold onto it for the climb up Pipeline Drive to the finish line. I crossed with a chip time 20:03 for a new personal best and fifth in my age group and I’m proud of that but just not very happy if that makes sense. So today, with seven weeks to go, it’s back to marathon training with a long run around most of the Seawall.