Books Read:
25. For Your Safety Please Hold On — Kayla Czaga
26. The Apothecary — Lisa Robertson
Kilometres Ran:
this week — 25.15
to date — 481.42
I’d read and heard a lot of hype around Kayla Czaga’s first poetry collection and I’ve wanted to read it for a while, and I finally picked up a copy at Russel’s Books in Victoria when I was there for the Easter weekend. I really like that bookstore. Its poetry section is a gem for contemporary Canadian stuff, especially Western Canada stuff. The collection is really great and it did not disappoint in spite of the hype. My favourite is the long piece Many Metaphorical Birds that completes the collection. I’m a sucker for existentialist philosophy. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The day after getting home from Barcelona, The Paper Hound hosted a poetry reading featuring Michael Barnholden and Catriona Strang and it was really great and I left with half a dozen Lisa Robertson titles. I don’t know what the connection is there, except for The Giantesses, I guess. Incidentally, Robertson is going to be in town in mid-May to read alongside another Giantess Christine Stewart at READ Books over on Granville Island. I’m excited. It should be great.
I Sun Ran on Sunday. It was another gong show. I can’t decide if it’s become too big or just poorly managed. I set a new personal best time for 10 km, which is great, but I’m not sure it was worth the near panic attack I had after 30 minutes corralled with a few thousand people. I understand that pretty much everyone lies about their expected finish time when they register (I don’t, but I’m beginning to wonder…) but the problem was the people manning the corrals did zero to segregate bib colours and consequently the yellow section was flooded with every other colour, not to mention at least a half dozen strollers. Seriously. Fucking strollers. Then the number of people already walking at the 1 km marker. I’m not quick, but for the second half of the race I was passed by maybe ten people. I like the Sun Run, but if they cannot figure out how to manage it better I might stop participating. There seem to be a bunch of alternatives that likely have less aggravation. But it’s my own fault, really. It seems like every other post here is me lamenting how much I dislike other people when I’m running, so what the hell was I expecting joining a race with 42,000 other people. The BMO Half Marathon is in ten days. I’m hoping for a dearth of crowds at the start line. Fingers and laces crossed.
