Tag: Fall Classic Half Marathon

2019 week forty four

Book Read
42. Jakob von Gunten – Robert Walser

Kilometres Ran
week forty four – 53.3

2019 to date: 2,251 KM

You had me at Kafka was a fan and I’m glad that I picked up this somewhat obscure classic from Swiss writer Robert Walser. The title character is a broke runaway from a well-to-do family who enrols in a school for servants called The Institute. The book is quirky and strange and reads a lot like a diary because it is Jakob’s diary. I liked it but I think that its charm might have worn off if it had gone on for much longer.

Last weekend I did something that I’ve never done before besides run three races one right after the other; for the first time I paced a race. When I decided to attempt the Fall Classic hat trick (before it became the Hat Trick) my plan was to run a pretty easy half marathon to start. Now I know what I’m like, so I thought it might be fun to pace and thereby force myself to stick to an easy pace and actually give myself a chance to finish all three. So I sent an email to RunVan offering to pace 1:45 Fall Classic Half Marathon.

  • Before the start photos by and with Debra Kato

At first I was declined, but then a few days later they asked to have a phone conversation, which I think was an interview of sorts. Once I’d fooled them into believing that I’m not some hack I was in! I was paired up with another first-time pacer. No bunny ears and we would be sharing the pacing sign, but luckily we did each get our t-shirt with PACER emblazoned on the back. We met about an hour before the gun and decided to alternate holding the sign each 5 km and he would start. The gun went and we were off and I did my best to stick to about 4:55 pace but I think I was a bit quick. My partner with the sign, was quicker. I kept him in sight but hung back trying to stick to the pace. I set my watch to read cumulative average and it was saying that I was still a bit quick. Early on someone asked me what time I was pacing and I said 1:45 and not to worry about the guy way up ahead with the sign. We crossed 5 km and then 6 km and then 7 km and I was still a ways back so we didn’t swap sign duties and I really started to second guess myself and the accuracy of my watch and the stress that set in that I was potentially letting a bunch of people down was not very much fun. I had a few hangers-on and they seemed content with what I was doing compared to their watches and we slowly gained on the crowd around my pacing partner. I came up beside him at at 9.5 km and offered to take the sign for the rest of the race.

Um, why is there no one around us? Photo by Kimberly Bennett

I really wanted to be close to pace so I was very curious and a bit anxious to see the clock at the 10 km mat. I called out to the group that the clock was coming up and to be on pace we wanted to be 49:40 – now granted that’s gun time and we were a few second behind the start, but that’s what I was aiming for. I came up to the mat and checked the clock when I crossed and it read 49:30 and I’ll tell you that was one of the best feelings I’ve ever had midway through a race. The second and half was a bit of a blur. A couple times I got a bit ahead of pace and my partner reeled me in.

Oh that’s a better crowd. Photo posted by RunVan

We really started doing math in our heads over the last couple kilometres. We both knew we were going to come in a bit early and had a bit of friendly debate about by just how much. The last kilometre I was shouting at everyone around me to give it everything they had left and not let us pass them. With a couple hundred metres to go I was pretty sure that those still with us were in a good spot, and we slowed up a bit and just kept telling people to RUN! Still it was a bit of a relief to round that last corner with only about 50 metres left to go and see the clock counting up 1:44. I crossed the finish line at 1:44:38 gun time and I’m pretty satisfied with that aim. I really wanted to be 1:44:59 and I might have been able to stretch it out if the finish chute was a bit longer, but 22 seconds is still pretty good and I know there were a few people happy crossing the finish line. Thanks for RunVan for letting me give pacing a try. I look forward to doing it again sometime.

With Stephanie at the finish. Photo by Debra Kato

2019 week forty two

Book Read
40. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan

Kilometres Ran
week forty two – 40.6

2019 to date: 2,149

I think that this book was a book that I was “supposed to” read before I went and spent eight days in Paris back in the spring and I hope that’s not the case because it has nothing to do with Paris and while I recognize that it is “good” it really did nothing for me and if it had been longer I am sure that I would have put it down long before finishing. Cécile is the seventeen-year-old narrator of a summer spent in the Riviera with her rather care-free (hedonist) father. She is about as reliable a narrator as a you might imagine from a teenage narrator with a father who behaves much like he’s a teenager still too. And good for him, but then along comes Anne and she does her best to straighten out both of them, which also goes about as well as you might imagine. I had to remind myself a few times that the ideas in the book seem rather juvenile but that might be because Sagan wrote it when she was eighteen. I didn’t particularly like it but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a decent novella, just not to my liking. Moving on.

As should come as a surprise to no one who’s been following along, my Marathon Photos from the Victoria Half Marathon on Thanksgiving were terrible. But here’s a pretty great photo by Matt Cecill featuring me in full float coming up Dallas Road a little past 16 km. Thanks Matt!

I’ve been biking a lot and in the course of that developed a bit of a weird stiffness in my right leg that I’ve been going to physio about, which is nothing that concerns me because it has had zero effect on my running but lately as my running has ramped up I’ve done less cycling and I’ve noticed that my knees have started to bother me again. I swear that the cycling kept them in check so it makes sense that less cycling would mean a recurrence of some knee niggles but i had also hoped that we were past that by now. Last Sunday I raced pretty hard at the Victoria Half Marathon and I took Monday off completely and then went for a long bike ride on Tuesday after not biking for over a week and then followed that in the evening with a pretty casual 10 km around the park and my right calf and knee were a bit of a bother but nothing of concern. Wednesday was regular physio for aforementioned leg thing and I mentioned the calf and knee and my physiotherapist, bless her, is an amateur poker player at best and suggested that I take it easy for a few days. She expressed more concern about my calf than my knee, but she put the ultrasound on my knee for a best and then told me no Wednesday night workout with the crew so I took the rest of the day off. Thursday and Friday I spun on the cycle trainer and I was feeling pretty good on Saturday morning so I went out for my scheduled 30 km training run. The run went fine, and the calf issue is gone, but holyshit my knee is not very happy with me and now I’m more than a bit concerned about the fact that I am pacing the 1:45 half marathon at the Fall Classic this weekend and then following that with the 10 km race at goal marathon pace and then following that with the 5 km race at easy pace for the first official Fall Classic Hat Trick – a dude did it a few years ago but back then you had to hammer the half because the 10 km gun went just 90 minutes after the half gun. This year RunVan adjusted the start times to make it a bit easier for us hackers – 10 km two hours after the half start, and 90 minutes before the 5 km start. Suffice it to say, knee better get its shit together, and not just because of the Fall Classic, but far more importantly I’m just 50 days away from toeing the line at the California International Marathon.