Tag: Marathon

2019 week sixteen

Book Read
16. Asymmetry – Lisa Halliday

Kilometres Ran
week sixteen – 58

2019 to date: 785 KM

Another book that made it onto my 2019 reading list because it kept showing up on various best-of-2018 lists and I decided to see what the fuss was about. And for the first third* the novel “Folly” is pretty great. The story follows the relationship between Alice, a 20-something editor, and much older writer Ezra Blazer in New York during beginning of the American invasion of Iraq (2003 edition). The second third* “Madness” is a seemingly completely disjointed story of Amar, an Iraqi-American who on a layover in London on his way to visit family in Kurdistan, gets the full Kafka treatment at the hands of Heathrow immigration officers. It’s a good albeit frustrating read, but bears only the most subtle connection to “Fully” such that I’m reading wondering if Asymmetry is a novella collection. And then comes the final third, which is a fraction the length of “Folly” and “Madness” (and explains my asterisk after “third”) and finds Ezra in a radio interview discussing the records he would take to a desert island. But, alas, no Alice. I liked this book in spite of not really liking Ezra very much, and I think I’ve figured out how the three stories fit together but I’m not sure and if I happen to be correct I’d rather not spoil it here.

Saturday I ran a 25 KM loop around Victoria for my last long run before the BMO Marathon that is at time of typing just 13 days away. It went okay. But just okay. I had a plan and coach had another and what I did instead was just go for a run by feel after a few kilometres to warm up and not pay attention to pace. So after about 6 KM I “ran faster” for another 8 KM, then a bit of a break before an out-and-back interval along the 1,500 metre Ogden Point Breakwater, then endurance pace home. Like I said, it went just okay. By the end of 25 KM I didn’t have a whole lot left to give, and the idea of running another 17 KM seemed daunting. I think that had sunk in much earlier, though, as I spent the much of the second half of the run coming to terms mentally with the notion that 42.2 KM on May 5 in Vancouver isn’t going to go very well, second guessing my coaching, my training load, my fitness, all of the doubts piled on and by the time I got to the end of it I was fine with it. Like being a bit numb.

Sunday morning I was scheduled to do a 30 minute recovery run but went for a 36 KM bicycle ride instead and it was really great. I managed to clear my head a bit and put a bit of perspective into the past 10 weeks on my feet, such that when I got home I immediately put my running shoes on and went out for a 5 KM loop with some hills and a bit of an uptempo along the sea side. I’ve set an A and B goal for this marathon, but I’ve been much less rigid with my goals going into this third time out. On Saturday, I felt like running a new personal best was out of reach. Now I’m doubting my doubts. With less than two weeks to go, and having done this twice before, I know it’s pretty much all mental now.

2019 week fifteen

Book Read
15. Goya, The Terrible Sublime – El Torres & Fran Galán

Kilometres Ran
week fifteen – 76.2

2019 to date: 727

I came across this book in the Lit Hub Daily newsletter and didn’t bother reading the Lit Hub article but ordered a copy of the book because I like Goya and I liked the idea of a graphic novel biography of an artist I like. I don’t read a lot of graphic novels but I don’t pooh-pooh them either since most have as much text as a typical poetry collection and the artwork can be spectacular. This book was okay. I thought Fran Galán did a beautiful job illustrating, but the story didn’t do much for me. El Torres’s story of Goya’s later years is inspired by the artist’s biography. Some of Goya’s most interesting work is the stuff he did as he descended further into mental illness. El Torres focuses on the descent, but not so much the art that resulted. I felt like that was a bit of a miss, considering the format is so image dependent.

I skipped the Vancouver Sun Run again this year and instead went for a leisurely jog along about 87 per cent of the BMO Marathon route. I rode the Skytrain to 41st street and basically ran the race course, minus the first bit and last bit and the out-and-back around 14KM. I’m going to over-analyze this run until the actual race (and probably beyond). I’ve had mixed feelings about it all day. I posted it to Strava as “demoralizing” and it definitely was over the last 8 or 9 KM as I completely gassed out in the flats around the Stanley Park Seawall. But there were some positives, too. I thought that the dreaded Camosun hill wasn’t as bad as the hype. Granted I wasn’t running race pace, but I thought a couple of the hills at last weekend’s April Fools Run half marathon on the Sunshine Coast were harder. The other positive was that my breathing and heart rate were both pretty casual over the whole 192 minutes, which I think it a great sign. Unfortunately, my legs do not have the same fitness as my heart and lungs. It’s hard not to second guess the process right now. I’m trying not to. But I’m concerned that my overall fitness just isn’t where it should be with just three weeks to go until the marathon.

2019 week twelve

Book Read
12. Lullaby – Leïla Slimani

Kilometres Ran
week twelve – 62.6

2019 to date: 541 KM

Lullaby also know as The Perfect Nanny depending on whether the Sam Taylor translation of the original French novel Chanson Douce is from the UK or North America (respectively) tells the story of a well-to-do family who hire Louise—a seemingly perfect nanny to their two children. I’m not giving anything away revealing that she murders the children; it says so right on the book’s cover. I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but given that the death of the children is on the cover of the book I did not expect the death of the children to not happen until the end of the book. What started out as a book I was enjoying about as much as I enjoyed Motherhood gradually began to spiral downward into what could become the next Gaspar Noé film. The reader knows what’s going to happen but Slimani masterfully makes you work for it. I couldn’t look away until the end, and once I got there I wanted a bit more. I liked this book a lot.

Mile2Marathon Wednesday workout at the Point Grey track, Vancouver, March 20, 2019. Photo by Jody Bailey*

About seven weeks ago I made a pretty significant change that I’ve been alluding to on here for the past few posts and I think that maybe I’m sort of ready to write a bit about it. I’d recovered (mostly) from my knee issue from the fall and was really looking forward to taking a healthy second shot at the BMO Marathon in May, and then I overloaded and blew up my achilles. Frustrated is an understatement. Stephanie suggested I hire a coach, an idea that I’d been toying with for some time. I’d covertly explored a few options and had pretty much narrowed it down to a couple camps, one being Mile2Marathon. Still noncommittal, I completed the online questionnaire and hit submit.

Coach Kevin Coffey telling me what to do, and me taking it. Mile2Marathon at the Point Grey track, Vancouver, March 20, 2019. Photo by Jody Bailey*

I really don’t like being told what to do (or what not to do…). So that’s a problem. I received an email reply to my questionnaire from Dylan Wykes where he talked about next steps and getting me matched up with a coach. But I was still rather hesitant and skeptical. Dylan suggested a telephone call. Over the phone I explained that I was currently injured, that I was really tired of constantly getting injured, and that I was hoping that having some structure would help. I also explained that I feel like I have accomplished a lot on my own and I don’t think I’ve reached my full potential without any help. Asking for help is a pretty big deal for me, and I was still rather skeptical of the process. Dylan said he understood, and I believed him.

Kevin and me. Mile2Marathon at the Point Grey track, Vancouver, March 20, 2019. Photo by Jody Bailey*

I matched up with Kevin Coffey, whom I’d decided I wanted to work with after having put a lot of forethought. He started running “late” (not as late as me…), has a few full marathons completed, and has had his own share of injury setbacks so I figured that he has some insights grounded in personal experience. I’ve been following him on Strava for a while, and I recently remembered that he showed up briefly in a post on here a couple years ago, which in retrospect is rather entertaining. So far I feel like it’s going okay. It’s frustrating at times, mostly because he’s doing his job (i.e., telling me what to do) which means I’ve been running a lot less than I probably would on my own. But the time I am running feels more challenging, and I’ve been spending a lot less time in physio. I never imagined looking forward to running around a track once a week, so there’s that (I’m pretty sure in my questionnaire I answered nope to group workouts). I can’t say it has all been perfect (singlet? anyone? Bueller?), but I can say that the whole Mile2Marathon coaching team seems to really, genuinely care about their athletes. Six weeks until BMO Marathon and still lots of work to do, but I (cautiously) believe I made the right decision.

*I am very grateful to Jody Bailey for these photographs. You can check out the complete set from the Mile2Marathon track workout on March 20 here: gallery.jodybailey.ca/g/mile2marathon/oldblueinspring/
You can also find Jody on Instagram @3oh6 and @run.photography