Tag: BMO Vancouver Marathon

2019 week forty

Book Read
Nope

Kilometres Ran
week forty – 85.7

2019 to date: 2,040 KM

It’s not that I didn’t read anything, rather I didn’t finish the book that I’m currently reading (that seems redundant). It’s a good one, though. I’ll finish it in time for next week and then I will be two books behind in my 2019 reading goal. Twelve weeks to go. I can do 14 books in 12 weeks. Talon’s fall launch is on Wednesday, and features new releases by favourites Oana Avasilichioaei and Danielle LaFrance. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it, what with Mile2Marathon track workout Wednesday eve. I need a doppelgänger.

NorthVanRun 10K a little over half way, with Shauna Gersbach out front, and Jordan Hurdal drafting me. Gersbach would finish W3 overall, and Hurdal passed me with about two to go, finishing AG 2nd. I settled for AG 3rd but more importantly to me 39:22 crushing my sub 40 goal. Photo by Dave Mallari.

On the running side of things goals are coming along just fine thank you very much. Earlier this summer I broke six minutes in the mile, which I don’t think was a stated 2019 goal, but became one when the opportunity to run it presented itself. Then after finally crossing an official timing mat to break 20 minutes over 5 kilometres in the Eastside 10K a couple weeks ago, and breaking 40 minutes at the NorthVanRun 10K last weekend, this week crossed another goal off my list, surpassing 2,019 KM (so far…) this year. In 2018 I surpassed 2,018 KM a few weeks earlier, but I was also running hurt (and dumb) at the time. This year started a bit slow dealing with an achilles injury, and the build for the BMO Marathon in May was pretty cautious in retrospect, or to spin it, quality kilometres over quantity.

Finish sprint down to the end of The Shipyards pier, and arguably the coolest race finish line in the Lower Mainland. Photo by Jan Heuninck.

I’m heading over to Victoria for Thanksgiving weekend with my sights set on running a sub 90 minute half marathon and I’m riding pretty damn high on confidence. I’ve never run the half event, though I’ve run every bit of the course, from many weekends escaping to Oak Bay to visit family, and getting chewed up and spit out running the marathon last fall. Weather and wind can both play huge factors, and weather apps indicate next Sunday will be wet. I can thrive in wet. Downpour less so. Headwind could spell disaster. But whatever. I’m ready to give it my all and see what happens. I’ll let you know how it goes.

2019 week nineteen

Book Read
21. Dear Current Occupant – Chelene Knight

Kilometres Ran
week nineteen – 26.4

2019 to date: 931 KM

Dear Current Occupant is an award-winning creative non-fiction memoir that I had in my poetry pile to read during National Poetry Month and then found that it’s not actually poetry, but it has some poems sprinkled here and there. Knight traces her childhood growing in Vancouver by retracing the places she lived and writing to people currently living there. I don’t know if she ever actually gave any of the writing to the current occupant. It doesn’t matter. I liked this book. It’s a bit weird to me that such a Vancouver-centric book has a Toronto publisher. It does make me wonder if it was turned down by any local publishers. And then it goes on to win the 2018 City of Vancouver Book Award. I liked this book very much. If you follow the link above you can see a video of Knight reading from it. And then you can roam around the Book*hug website because don’t let Toronto fool you, they’re pretty great.

BMO Vancouver Marathon 2019, at about 37.5 KM just before Lumberman’s Arch. Other than the salty shoulders I look way better than I felt. Photo by Taylor Maxwell

A week ago was the BMO Vancouver Marathon and I’ve spent most of the week riding a rather high runner’s high expecting a crash that still hasn’t come. One reason for the continued high is the number of people that sent photos from the race. The BMO Vancouver Marathon uses the running photography cartel Marathon-Photo but I often get suckered. There’s usually one or two that are just okay but on the whole the photos are terrible. I don’t know how they manage to be so terrible so often. So I am so extremely grateful to the people who saw and recognized me on the course and snapped a photo and then sent them to me or posted them online. I’ve reposted a bunch on my Instagram but included my three most vanity stroking selections above and below.

In the finish area, post-race-drunk-talking to Debra Kato and Walter Downey. When I first saw these photos I couldn’t remember this moment at all. Bits are coming back now. Photos by Debra Kato.

I didn’t run much this week but I managed to put around 115 KM on my bicycle. I ran Wednesday and today (Sunday) and both days the legs were lead but the runs were really enjoyable, especially considering the last time I ran a marathon I could barely walk afterwards, and couldn’t run for nearly a month. In three days I’m getting on a jet plane and flying to Paris and then getting on a train ride to Basel, Switzerland where in seven days I’m running the Dreiländerlauf half marathon, which starts and ends in Basel and passes through France and Germany. How cool does that sound? It doesn’t look like a very big race but that suits me just fine. It does look pretty flat, though it’s a couple hundred metres above sea level. Maybe those factors will even out? Maybe there’s a new HM PB? Maybe I’ll just go have fun? Definitely I’ll let you know how it went next week.