Tag: CBC Radio 1

2019 week thirty two

Book Read
30. The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead

Kilometres Ran
week thirty two – 48.4

2019 to date: 1,506 KM

I don’t remember why I was listening to Q on CBC Radio 1 the other day and post-creep what’s his name was interviewing Whitehead about this book and I had never heard an interview with him before nor had I read any of his books though The Underground Railroad has been floating on the periphery of my to read list / pile for a while but The Nickel Boys grabbed my attention and not just for the title. I read it in a couple days because (1) it’s more of a novella than a novel and (2) it’s completely captivating. It tells the story of two boys who end up being sentenced to Florida reform school during Jim Crow and the beginning of the rise of the Civil Rights movement. The Nickel Boys is a fictionalize account of the horrific treatment alleged to have actually taken place at the Dozier School for Boys. I recommend this book. I expect it to be on a few best of the year lists.

I have no new photos running this week or last week so please enjoy this photo documentation of why my knees hate me as I cross the finish line at Take the Bridge back in July, as captured by @gconnelie

Marathon build number four officially started this week and what’s become apparent almost instantly is that I’m going to struggle with balancing running and cycling and that is not something that I ever expected to have happen. But I also didn’t expect to be cycle-commuting to and from the office nearly everyday, weather permitting (and weather has permitted a lot this summer). The problem is that after an 80-minute, 34 KM bike ride home from the office each evening I’m not really in the mood to go for a jog around Stanley Park. I’ve come up with a few solutions. Best is that I go back to running a lunch time. The problem is that I can maybe squeeze in 40-45 minutes at the most and should probably be sticking closer to 30 minutes. I did this on Friday. It was okay, but I was pretty tired for the cycle home at the end of the day. Second best solution is to bike in a bit earlier and then run before starting work. I don’t think I could get more than 30 minutes in doing that, but I haven’t tried it yet. The rest are crap for various reasons. I could run the 11.5 KM from Braid Skytrain Station to the office but then I’m stuck riding transit all the way home in the evening (which is awful). I could drive the car, but I really like not driving, or perhaps hate driving, plus the car isn’t insured for to/from work so I could only do that six time per month anyway and frankly I really like how much my commute costs on a bicycle. What it really comes down to is striking a balance between getting the marathon build work done and my utter loathing having to take public transit from Port Coquitlam to the West End Vancouver. It’s awful, and I already dread that it’s my fate from mid-November until late March.

2018 week forty seven

Book Read:
50. The Tiger Flu — Larissa Lai

Kilometres Ran:
week forty seven: 32.9

To date: 2,290 KM

I remember one of my instructors in journalism school who use to write book reviews who said that she wouldn’t write a review of a book she didn’t like and I thought “that’s a cop out.” And then this morning on CBC Radio One Michael Enright was talking to Margaret Atwood during a fundraiser for the Literary Review of Canada and the subject of book reviews came up and Atwood said she never writes reviews for books that she doesn’t like and there was something else about bloggers being hacks because they were essentially anonymous and couldn’t be sued but I’d zoned out by then. I really wanted to like this book and I really should have liked this book and I really, really tried really hard to like this book but I just didn’t. I really did not like Kirilow. But I did like Kora and the pandemic-induced post-apocalyptic theme and the sprinkling of Vancouver landmarks and locales. I don’t think I’ve ever felt bad about not liking a book before.

At the halfway point turn-around getting a beat down from Meredith MacGregor, who was the top woman in the 1 Mile race just 45 minutes earlier. Also, just like Meredith’s, that thing on my face came off very soon after the race.

Yesterday was the Moustache Miler and I raced the 5K and managed to raise a little over $614 for the Movember Foundation. It was a great event and I had a lot of fun with it. Facebook did not like it. At least that’s what I’m telling myself…it’s the algorithms, stupid! I still think that my “Movember Foundation: Men are dying young; Most of my social media feed: GOOD!” joke was pretty funny, but crickets on that post. I did get one person ask when I’m doing the Merkin Miler — which is a great question, btw. Anyway, I wanted to raise over $500 mostly just to see if I could, and as well to run faster than 20:09. I’ve never raced a 5KM before. My 20:09 PB is from what my watch says I ran the first 5KM of the Eastside 10K back in September of this year, where I set a personal best in the 10K (officially) and apparently the 5K (unofficially). I did not run a personal best time. I went out pretty quickly and then faded and finished in 20:28, which I still think is really great considering what these past two months have been like trying to get past this knee injury. Later when I checked my splits I was really surprised to see how consistent my times were for 2-3-4-5 kilometres. By 3KM I thought I was going to die but the clock seems to say it was all in my head. I finished third in my age group and 19th overall.