Tag: Eastside 10K

2019 week thirty six

Book Read
35. Wilful Disregard – Lena Andersson

Kilometres Ran
week thirty six – 69.9

2019 to date: 1,751

Translated from Swedish by Sarah Death, Wilful Disregard tells the story of Ester Nilsson, a young intellectual who falls in love with a (much older) famous visual artist. That’s really all that you need to know because just about every other cliché is on display throughout this novella, and yet I thought it was very good. The story is entirely from Ester’s perspective and there are times that I want to grab her and give her a good shake (not unlike her “girlfriend chorus” who play much the same role and do just about as well as Jiminy Cricket). Today I learned that there is a sequel by the translated title Acts of Infidelity, which given the rather apt title of the first, makes me quite curious about the sequel. So I picked up a copy and I sort of feel like it should sit high on the to-read pile. I’ll let you know how it goes soon I’m sure. I find it difficult to sympathize with Ester but I’m invested now and what to find out what happens next. Like watch a car catch fire in an accident and hanging around just to see if it will explode.

This photo of me by Debra Kato looking very official counting laps at the Vancouver Distance Track Series 10,000 event a little over a week ago. I feel like I need a job that involves a clipboard.

It was, for the most part, a rather uneventful week running and by uneventful I mean that maybe in a good way. The slow build towards December is coming along just fine such that I’m waiting wondering when the bad stuff is going to happen. So I made an appointment to see my physiotherapist just to check in for a maintenance visit next week. I’ve had a nagging pain in my hips that hasn’t bothered my running at all but it annoyingly sharp when I’m not. And then, within 48 hours or so of making an appointment I went for a run and my hip flexors were not very happy. They calmed down after a couple hundred metres and it could be due to the 27 KM I ran yesterday. I expect I’ll get some answers this week. They will probably sound something like, “you really need to warm up before / stretch and foam roll after / do some cross training / maybe something (anything) with some lateral movement.” I mean, those are all true but I’ve never had any hip issues before. I’d rather not mess up the very full fall I have lined up: one week until Eastside 10K, three weeks until NorthVanRun 10K, five weeks until Victoria half, seven weeks until Fall Classic half/10/5 and then the big one, thirteen weeks until California International Marathon.

2019 week thirty five

Book Read
34. Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter

Kilometres Ran
week thirty five – 61

2019 to date: 1,681

In this pretty great debut novella a father and two sons deal with life and grief at the loss of partner and mother, along with a crow who serves as a sort of asshole grief counsellor who promises to hang around for as long as the family needs. Porter’s experimental style is not easily accessible but I liked it a lot. I am sure most of the Dickinson and (Ted) Hughes references went right over my head but I really enjoyed this book regardless. A relatively short read that you might have to work a bit for, but worth it.

Saturday was the third and final event in the Vancouver Distance Track Series hosted by Nic Browne and the Vancouver Falcons Athletic Club. Initially billed to be a 10,000 on the track up at UBC, a couple weeks ago Nic added an 800 and mile to the event so I signed up to see if I could better my mile result from back at the beginning of June. The field was a lot thinner this time out, which I think turned out to be a disadvantage. My goal was to try to run 1:25 laps for the first three and then try to explode my heart on the fourth but without a pacer my timing was merely guesswork.

Photo by Debra Kato

First lap I came through at 1:26 and I was rather pleased with myself and settled into a rhythm that, turns out, was a bit slow. Second lap the clock read 2:58. Third and into the bell lap and I don’t recall the numbers on the clock but I had a feeling it was my slowest. I pushed hard through the 300 metres of lap four and then tried my damndest to cough up a lung on the final straight to the finish.

Photo by Debra Kato

I crossed the finish 5:52 for the same finish time as my first mile attempt back in June, proving, I guess, that it was not a fluke. Hindsight being what it is, I think that I could have given more on lap three. I also think that back in June I benefited a lot from having people close to me throughout the race. This time out I was 14 seconds ahead of the runner behind me, and 38 seconds behind the next person in front of me. But then this morning I checked both times again; my run Saturday was 7/100 faster than June. I’ll take it. Twelve days until Eastside 10K. BONUS: I knew that Rachel Cliff is the current Canadian women’s marathon record holder, which won me an entry into the Gunner Shaw Cross Country race in December. Yay! BUT: I think I’ll be in Sacramento running the California International Marathon. Boo! I need to double check.

2019 week thirty

Book Read
28. Altered States of Consciousness: Experiences Out of Time and Self – Marc Wittmann

Kilometres Ran
week thirty – 33.5

yeah but also 10.4 KM hike & 147.4 KM bicycling

2019 to date: 1,415 KM

This little book translated by Philippa Hurd explores consciousness and the experience of through three long essays (okay fine chapters) focusing on altered states of consciousness (i.e., drug use), mindfulness meditation, embodiment, and experience of time and timelessness. I don’t remember why I picked up this book but I’m happy that I did. I really enjoyed Wittmann’s intersecting literature, philosophy and psychology, making for an entertaining and accessible read, without too many trauma flashback to the directed study I did in undergrad on Edmund Husserl’s Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Many gems to pull completely out of context in here, especially this favourite from the third part: “Boredom actually means that we find ourselves boring. It’s the intensive self-reference: we are bored with ourselves. We are tired of ourselves.” Wittman goes on to quote Rudiger Safranski on Heidegger:

Pure time, its pure presence. Boredom – that is, the moment when no one notices that time is passing because it will not just then pass, then one cannot drive it away, make it pass, or, as the saying goes, fill it meaningfully. … It refuses to pass, it stands still, it holds one i inert immobility, it “thralls.” This comprehensive paralysis reveals that time is not simply a medium in which we move, but that it is something that we produce out of ourselves.

Wittman on Rudiger on Heidegger

We have all experienced time slowing to a crawl when we’re bored. Apparently, if you’re bored it’s because you are boring, and your boring ass’s boringness actually slows your own perception of the passage of time. But maybe I’m misinterpreting. Who knows? It’s worth reading it yourself to find out, I think.

At Eagle Bluffs

Another week and a low running score but no races to blame. Instead, on Saturday Stephanie and I hiked Cypress to Black Mountain and Cabin Lake and Eagle Bluffs with some people from her office and I use the term “with” loosely because apparently they thought that the hike up to the Bluffs was a race, and once we caught up and had a group photo the race was back on back down to the parking lot (and beer).

At the top of Black Mountain, with the birds.

We stopped again on the way back down and Stephanie got to feed the Whisky Jacks and I was thinking about taking a dive into Cabin Lake but ultimately decided it was a bit too chilly (the air, not the water, which seemed warmer than I’d expected it to feel). We had a good time in spite to getting pretty muddy trudging through the remnants from the downpour the night before. I would like to do it again, maybe not all the way to the Bluffs but I definitely see the appeal of Cabin Lake on a hot summer’s day. I’m in a bit of a running lull right now and that’s okay. I set out to run a race each month in 2019 and seven months into the year I have run thirteen races. So/but, I don’t have a race planned in August. Initially I figured I wouldn’t have any troubling finding one, but in reality not that many races happen in August, so it seems. I won the Seawheeze lottery but declined the entry. (And frankly, when I saw the vomit shorts for 2019 I knew I’d made the right decision.) If I decide that I need an August race my last minute option is the final of the Vancouver Falcons track series: a 10,000 on the oval up at UBC. However, the idea of 25 laps around a track a week and a bit before the Coho Run 14 KM (it’s a maybe) and a couple before the Eastside 10K (it’s a definitely) and a month before the North Van 10 KM (last 2019 chance for sub 40 minute 10 KM), the VFAC 10,000 seems unlikely. But who knows, I might get bored by then.