Tag: Fall Classic

On Overthinking Hat Tricks

Books Read:
32. Homage to Catalonia — George Orwell

Kilometres Ran:
week forty two — 0
week forty three — 10
week forty four — 33

To date: 2,342 km

A year and a bit ago I went to Barcelona and before I went I decided that I would pick up a couple books not necessarily about Barcelona but with some connection to there. I ended up with The Shadow of the Wind and Homage to Catalonia. I read Shadow and it was pretty awful. And Homage sat on my shelf and then suddenly Catalonia was in the news and so I figured it was a good time to get some back story. The book is pretty great, and so relevant to today, not least for the fact that the Left still cannot get its collective shit together and just work towards a common goal rather than fighting about every little nuance of disagreement. So some things never change.

I went to physio and the physio said, no more … well what actually happened is that I said that I was a bit concerned that I was going to run terribly at the Fall Classic and was feeling really out of shape and that I maybe wasn’t so concerned about my knee, because I have self-detrimental willpower when it comes to running (which is probably partly why I’m in this mess in the first place) and she said maybe you should switch to the 10 km. That’s what she said. So I did and for a little bit there I felt like a bit of a fraud claiming the RunVan Hat Trick because I wasn’t running the half but then I figured that if I’d run the BMO Half rather than the full marathon in the spring I wouldn’t think my hat trick was a fraud so I’ve managed to justify that BMO Full + Turkey Trot + Fall Classic 10KM does = legitimate hat trick. Still wanted to run the half though. Still disappointed.

Don’t Tell Me Not to Run

Books Read:
31. Don’t Tell Me What to Do — Dina Del Bucchia

Kilometres Ran:
week forty — 33 km
week forty one — 20 km

To date: 2,299 km

I loved this book. It’s a great collection and really deserves the positive critical reviews it is getting. I’m very happy for Dina. I’ve managed to have my name end up on the colophon page of a few books but never the acknowledgements. None that I’m aware of anyway. So the acknowledgements shout out to my old little Downtown Eastside gallery where Dina happened to be in the last show I was involved with there gave me all the feels.

Granville Island Turkey Trot

I Turkey Trotted, and it was a lot of fun and I set a new best for 10K shaving over 2:30 off my PB at the 2016 Eastside 10K, and I scored my first top 10 finish with a seventh in my age category. I was less excited when I saw the posted results at the finish, with me coming in seventh out of nine. But by the time all the results were in it was 7/153. My knee is still not very happy with me and my physiotherapist said no running if I want to be better by the Fall Classic and I do but I went out on Friday the 13th and did the Ghost Race because Don’t Tell Me What to Do (thanks Dina) even though I dislike Lululemon (but have somehow managed to justify Kit & Ace). But since then I’ve run none and I’m going a bit crazy even though I’ve put about 100 km on Mobi Bikes it’s just not the same. I’m still over 200 km ahead of pace to reach my goal of 2,600 km in 2017 but for my head’s sake I really need to go for a run.

week forty four

Books Read:
54. H is for Hawk — Helen Macdonald

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 66.32
to date — 1,702.77

I started reading H is for Hawk and I was not expecting anything. It’s good. It’s very well written and I like the author’s voice but I didn’t read the back of the book and I didn’t know that it is a memoir and a depressing one. I guess true stories of someone’s personal experience dealing with grief are interesting. I guess. Maybe interesting isn’t the correct word. It’s probably not the word I’m looking for. I don’t remember where this book came from. It may have been a gift. Not a wrapped up with a bow gift but more of the hey here’s a stack of books that I was just going to give to goodwill and you like to read do you want to have them I mean I was just going to give them away anyway so you should take them and then if you don’t want them then you can do whatever you want with them kind of gift. You know the kind. If you’ve ever known anyone that reads a lot and if you also read a lot then you know that kind of gift pretty well, I’m willing to wager. I wrote reads a lot there and that’s sort of subjective because I really haven’t been reading a lot. I haven’t been reading much of anything lately. Maybe it’s the weather. But I think that the consensus is that this is actually pretty fine reading weather.
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This is pretty fine running weather, though. I think anyway. This is the second most distance covered in a week since I started keeping track 44 weeks ago. I was thinking about doing the Fall Classic right up until I saw the course and was turned off by it being two 10 kilometreish laps. I realize that I have basically two routes that I mentally flip a coin between and I do have a couple subtle variations but it has been years since I’ve run laps. When I first started running I would run laps at China Creek Park and did not like it at all, which is probably why early attempts at being a runner were a unmitigated failure. But I’ve also contemplated running laps of Stanley Park. So maybe I’ll regret skipping the Fall Classic. But I signed up for the Vancouver First Half in February, so there’s that.