Book Read
14. The Plague – Kevin Chong
Kilometres Ran
week thirteen – 71.2
2020 to date: 809 KM
One of my favourite living writers (Alain de Botton) wrote this pretty great piece in the New York Times about one of my favourite dead writers (Albert Camus) and his (ahem, one of my favourite) book. You can read it here. I don’t completely agree with de Botton but it did get me thinking that now is as good a time as any to revisit The Plague. So I picked up this copy of Kevin Chong’s The Plague in which he rather deftly rehashes Camus’ classic, setting it in contemporary Vancouver. And I thought it was great, but maybe too great because it didn’t take long to conclude that now is, in fact, not as good a time as any to revisit any very plausible depiction of a pandemic locking down my home city while my home city is on the verge of being locked down. But maybe you’re a bit of a masochist too? (Follow the link above and find it 25 per cent off directly from the press, and between now and total lock down, they’ll deliver it too.)
I survived a week of self-imposed Seawall isolation and what I learned is that (a) avoiding the Seawall makes it near impossible to avoid hills, and (b) hills and I do not get along. My one day of hills reprieve was my virgin experience running laps on the Brockton Oval dirt loop. Coach gave me ten times 600 metres with 200 metre breaks and I nearly tapped at five, then six, then by eight I decided I was in too deep to quit. It was also my first time doing 600s so maybe they just suck? It was also also my first time doing a proper track workout completely solo and as much as I love the solo run, solo track workouts suck. I do not know how anyone manages to do this all the time. The rest of the time this week I spent running up and down hills and over and back on bridges and I came out the end of the week pleasantly surprised by how much beating my legs (knees especially) bared and how well I recovered, especially a 33 KM romp to and then through the worst parts of the BMO Marathon course. You know, just in case RunVan change their mind and postpone rather than cancel. Not holding my breath for BMO but still holding hope for Berlin. Scotiabank Half hasn’t announced yet, though, which seems weirdly optimistic to me but I’ll take it.
