Tag: Fall Classic

2018 week forty two

Book Read:
47. Split Tooth — Tanya Tagaq

Kilometres Ran: None
To date: 2,161 KM

Kilometres Bicycled: 274.2

Tanya Tagaq is probably better known as the Inuk throat singer who won the 2014 Polaris Prize for her album Animism. This is her first book and don’t be surprised if it takes home a few awards too. (Long-listed for the 2018 Giller Prize it did not make the short list unfortunately.) Like her music, Tagaq smashes together multiple genres, telling the story of a young girl growing up in Nunavut in the 1970s. I like this book a lot. I like how she weaves memoir and mythology with bit of poetry to tell the her story. I look forward to more lit from her.

View along the way from Braid Skytrain Station into the office in Port Coquitlam. No bad days with a start like this.

Another week without any running as this nagging injury continues to nag. Worst of all, the weather this October has been nothing short of spectacular. In fact I think that the only day of rain the entire month so far was the day of the Victoria Marathon. With weather like this I’ve done all I can to take advantage and with this knee pain that does not seem to want to go away that means riding my bicycle as much as possible. So I commuted to and from the office every workday this week, plus rides around UBC and Stanley Park. I figure I’ve only got another couple rides before the weather turns. Daylight savings is right around the corner too which isn’t going to help on the long ride home in the evenings. While it’s been fun pedalling around, setting new segment PBs on Strava, and trying to maintain my fitness, I really long for a good run. I missed the Ghost Race this year (which ended today) and I had a couple fun races for fall that I was eying up. Fortunately, it seems, I didn’t pay the entry. But I did pay for the Fall Classic, and it looks like I’m going to be two-for-two tapping out of the half marathon. It’s coming up in just two weeks and I just don’t see it happening again this year. I’m sure I could finish but I’m not interested in prolonging another injury through the winter. That could change but I’m resigned to the notion that my next race is going to be the Icebreaker 8K in January, followed by the First Half when I’ll have another shot at a sub 90 half marathon. Any I’m okay with that. Mostly okay.

Fall Classic and Falling Behind

Books Read:
33. Running: A Love Story — Jen A. Miller
34. Notes from a Feminist Killjoy — Erin Wunker

Kilometres Ran:
week forty five — 38.2
week forty six — 16
week forty seven — 0
week forty eight — 8.3
week forty nine — 20.5
week fifty — 32.6

To date: 2,458 km

I haven’t written anything here in a month and a half and I wanted to get one more post in before my end of the year review that will probably come out on January 1 or 2, or whenever I motivate myself to review this year that was. I thought that Miller’s memoir was light and entertaining, though some reviews online were less than please with the amount of attention spent on her multiple failed relationships. The two of you that have been reading this blog since its inception will know about my own correlation between a toxic relationship demise and transforming from casual jogger into runner, and then the subsequent self-admission much later on. I don’t recall focusing on it much and I will not regale here. Suffice it to say I found Miller’s memoir hit close to home on some points but not in a PTSD sort of way. I wanted to read the Wunker and then won a copy at the season wrap of the Real Vancouver Writers Series. People complained in reviews that Notes is, well, notes. I liked it. I found it very pithy and wise with a Nietzsche-Gay-Science-esque quality of style. I was less attracted to the third part about feminist parenting because I have no interest in parenting. At all.

I ran the Fall Classic 10 KM and completed the RunVan Hat Trick, and while my time I cannot call disappointing I did run several minutes slower that the Turkey Trot 10 KM just a few weeks earlier. It is equally amazing and amazingly frustrating how quickly my stamina has diminished since cutting then quitting running while trying to nurse my knee back to not-hurting-all-the-time-except-when-running. If losing my endurance is the most frustrating, the annoyance that my knee hurt all the time since mid September except when I’m running, is a very close second most. I ran twice after the Fall Classic and then went to physio and ended up back at square one and I think my physiotherapist was as frustrated as me. So I took the rest of the month off. I’m slowly easing myself back into it. Slowly as in way to slow for my head, but a bit more quickly than my physiotherapist would like. I’m trying to find the balance of the two. That means that I’m not going to meet my goal of 2,600 KM in 2017, but I’m okay with that. I’m not great with that, but I’m already looking forward to 2018. The Vancouver First Half is just eight weeks away, and then the BMO Marathon is 12 weeks after that. Time to get my legs and lungs back.