Tag: Boston Qualifier

2020 week twenty three

Book Read
23. White Fragility – Robin DiAngelo

Kilometres Ran
week twenty three – 50.4

2020 to date: 1,441

I had to start somewhere so I went with the book that every white person seems to be reading right now thinking that it must be written by a BIPOC but no and it almost made me stop before I really got started plus a few voices online saying don’t read White Fragility read this instead (but I read it anyway). And it was good (and you should read it too if you haven’t already read it) but then maybe I should read something else *too* (and you should too probably). A friend suggest White Rage by Carol Anderson; another suggested How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. I’ve added both to my list.

Birthday Stanley Park loop.

I passed a semi-milestone birthday this week, which means that I’m in a new age group if we ever get to race again (for those races that have five-year age groups) and also means that my Boston Marathon qualifying time is now slower than my current personal best. In case we ever get to race again. Boston was cancelled this week. I think it was this week. Who can keep track anymore? One race series that still going on is the Mile2Marathon Virtual Race Series. Results from May were (rather quietly, ahem) posted online and I was right where I expected to be after my 5 KM performance – in the middle somewhere (but not the middle as in the middle prize winner, of course). Next up is the mile at the end of June and I’d like to see how close I can get to 5:20 so coach and I have been working on speed quite a bit and my body has said no. Specifically my right achilles and calf have said no. It’s not dire but it’s enough to make me pick up Chris Napier’s Science of Running from the coffee table and flip though and self diagnose and not be happy with the diagnosis so I’ll be contacting my physiotherapist this week and dialling back on the running (at least on the speed work) for a few days. Injury free since February 2019. I guess the streak had to end sometime.

2020 week eleven

“Books” Read
7. You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack – Tom Gauld
8-12. Money Shot #1 – #5 – Tim Seeley & Sarah Beattie

Kilometres Ran
week eleven – 88.8

2020 to date: 675 KM

The COVID-19 crisis has become a worldwide pandemic and while many online suggest this is a great time to get some reading done my attention span is on lingering around comic books and video games. So I read some comic books and played a lot of XBox. Tom Gauld graces the cover of many a New Yorker collecting dust on my coffee table, and I picked up this collection from Pulp Fiction Books in the fall. This little book collects from his eight years of weekly comics in the Guardian. Dark, quirky, genius. I’m a fan. I’m also a fan of Sarah Beattie on Twitter and Instagram and (also) back in the fall she started talking about a new project with Tim Seeley. Money Shot takes place in the near future “amid an anti-science presidential administration and public apathy.” A group of five scientists cannot secure research funding and resort to raising money by producing pay-per-view intergalactic porn. Fun, funny, smut. I’m sure I’ll get back to being Mr. Serious soon enough, but for now it’s comics and XBox.

Because everything is cancelled. First, Boston got postponed, which I was a bit relieved because I was expecting it to be cancelled. I expected everyone to get deferred to 2021 and then make it virtually impossible to qualify for Boston #125. But it was postponed, for now. Then the cascade started. Yesterday’s St Pat’s 5K was cancelled, followed by the Vancouver Sun Run. I wasn’t registered in either, but disappointed regardless. Then goal race April Fool’s Run half marathon on the Sunshine Coast was postponed until August and I was really disappointed. And then the BMO Marathon in May was cancelled and I was pretty demoralized. I had registered to run it to try to get a BQ for 2021 but didn’t talk about it except with my partner and coach, and had sworn them to secrecy for various reasons. Now I’m in limbo. I had wanted to run Berlin at the end of September and enjoy it rather than put the weight of BQ onto it. Who knows if it will even happen now. So for now I’m back to running like I did in the weeks following CIM – running for the sake of running and just enjoying it like I did way back before I became hyper-competitive with myself. And that’s okay, but I’m going to miss racing, and it seems my race-each-month goal is not going to happen this year. My next races are Scotiabank Half Marathon on June 28 followed by Summerfast 10K in mid-July. If they go ahead. We’ll see.