Tag: Garmin

2018 week fifty two

My year in running

My goal for 2017 was to run 2,600 KM. In the autumn I hurt my knee a couple hours before flying to Denmark to race the Copenhagen Half Marathon. An aggravated injury meant I didn’t meet my 2017 goal. I was still recovering at the beginning of 2018, so I set a more reasonable goal to run 2,018 KM. Then in August I hurt my other knee. Then in September, on a crap knee, I passed 2,018 KM. And then, in October, with a crap knee, I raced the Victoria Marathon and barely walked let alone ran again for a few weeks. In mid-December I was easing back into decent weekly milage and noticed that 2,600 KM for the year was within reach. So I went for it, and on December 29 I ran 11.8 KM around Oak Bay for 2,601 KM for the year.

Running races

I ran ten races in 2018, set a bunch of personal best (PB) times, and earned my first age-group podium finish.
First Half 21.1 KM – 1:43:04
West Van 10 KM – 44:06 (PB!)
BMO Half 21.1 KM – 1:34:52 (PB!)
Helsinki 21.1 KM – 1:39:09
Scotiabank 21.1 KM – 1:32:37 (PB!)
Kamloops 21.1 KM – 1:32:20 (PB! & Age group 1st!)
Eastside 10 KM – 41:23 (PB! + PB!)
North Van 10 KM – 43:46
Victoria 42.2 KM – 3:25:59 (PB!)
Moustache Miler 5 KM – 20:28 (PB?)
The Moustache Miler was two firsts for me: it was my first 5 KM race, and the first time I’ve raised money for charity. I expect more of both of those In spite of the Moustache Miler being my only 5 KM race to date, my fastest 5 KM time is 20:21 over the first 5 KM of this year’s Eastside 10 according to Sportstats.

Going places

I’ve drawn a circle around Stanley Park over 200 times and I still love that loop but this year I got to do a few new loops that were a lot of fun. These four are my favourite.

Final run in Helsinki. I thought this city was okay when I arrived and by the end of the week I didn’t want to leave. Some amazing running history there, too.
And then I fell in love with Tallinn. Didn’t hurt that the weather was unusually amazing the whole time we were there.
Stockholm is the first city I took my running stuff along on holiday, and I’ll never holiday without my running stuff again. I didn’t get a Sodermalm loop on that 2016 visit but I did this year.
Surrey?!? I KNOW! But this run was so much fun — down the hill then over a free ferry to Barnston Island. Plus I (currently) have the 3rd overall time looping Barnston Island (and it’s nowhere near my 10 KM PB). If I find myself marooned at the Surrey Sheraton again I’m definitely going for the crown.

Missing in action: the Helsinki City Half Marathon and the Victoria Marathon. I loved idea of racing Helsinki but the route just wasn’t my favourite. Victoria, in spite of setting a pretty huge personal best of over eight minutes, the race was a disappointment and I’m still bitter.

The numbers according to Strava:

Total Distance: 2,601.3 KM
Number of Runs: 226
Average KM/Run: 11.5 KM
Total Time Running: 212 Hours, 50 Minutes
Average Time Every Damn Day in 2018: 35 Minutes
At the beginning of the year I joined a group challenge to run the elevation of Mount Everest — 8,848 metres — and then forgot about it until I was crunching numbers the other night. I ran 38,419 metres of elevation in 2018, or the Everest summit 4.3 times.

Running’s free right?

When I first started running I bought a pair of adidas shoes at Costco for $40 or something, and Joe Fresh shorts and a top from the Superstore. I still wear adidas. JF not so much. I spend a lot more on running now. This year I decided to see how much.
Shoes: $1,434
Clothes: $970
Health: $619
Nutrition: $230
Race Entry: $724
Other: $665
TOTAL: $4,642
These dollars have caveats, of course. My shoe budget includes orthotics that I was not expecting, and I probably have shoes covered for 2019. I exhausted my extended health coverage and kept going to physiotherapy anyway. Race entry includes fees paid this year for races in 2019, but then excludes a few 2018 races paid for in 2017. Other includes a new Garmin watch, which had better not be an annual expense. The bloated Clothes expenditure is just embarrassing. I expect my 2019 total to be a lot less, but I’m a very recent convert to technical running socks.

Next week: New year — reading & running goals for 2019.

2018 week forty one

Book Read:
None

Kilometres Ran:
None

To date: 2,161 KM

Kilometres Bicycled: 127.3 +

Not a lot of reading this week. By not a lot of reading I mean I’ve read most of a book that I was going to write about tonight but I didn’t quite get it finished so I’ll write about it next week. I also have a couple poetry books that I read a few weeks ago but haven’t written about them yet. Those will come when I’ve finished sorting out how I want to write about them. So, some week in the next eleven weeks those will show up too.

Not a lot of running this week either. The week has been spent not really being able to walk for a couple days after the Victoria Marathon last Sunday and since then a lot of time on the bike. After Victoria we went to the Island’s west coast and stayed a couple nights at the Black Rock Resort in Uclulet (highly recommend, maybe not for the service in the restaurants, but otherwise pretty great). On Tuesday morning I rode a stationary bike to nowhere for a while and then had my first elliptical experience. Otherwise, zero running. My physiotherapist encourages the bike for my particular knee issues. The weather has been spectacular, and looks to be for the coming week as well, so I’ve been taking advantage. Garmin has been having some trouble keeping up, it seems. I’m missing almost 12 KM from Friday’s ride home from the office. Today I took a long loop over the Second Narrows Bridge, through North Van and West Van out almost to Lighthouse Park and then back over the Lions Gate to home, and Garmin shows me teleporting around 6 KM. I’m not sure what’s causing these missing kilometres. I’m anxious to get back to running but I don’t want to push it either. Cycling is keeping me mostly sane, but I also have lingering in the back of my mind that each passing day, even with the pedals and the pool jogging, I’m losing a little bit of my endurance. The Fall Classic is just three weeks away, and with it my last chance in 2018 to break 90 minutes in the half marathon. I’m pretty well resigned to the fact that not going to happen. I’m not even sure it’s the course to do it on, let alone what my conditioning will be come November 4.