Tag: North Van Run

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 thirty nine

Book Read:
In progress

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty nine — 32.8

To date: 2,104 KM

I’m still reading Roger Robinson’s When Running Made History and it seems sort of fitting that I finish it and write about it next week. I haven’t read much this week but I did pick up a read a pretty great Haruki Murakami short story called “The Wind Cave” in the September 3 issue of the New Yorker and you can read it too here if you haven’t already used up your free articles this month however many that is (five?) but it’s also October tomorrow so new month! or you could clear your cache and browser history or you know get a VPN or something. Or get a subscription and then randomly pick up an issue from a few issues ago from your coffee table one night when the power has gone out and you’re sitting in your darkened apartment with a few bottles of slowly warming ginger beer and a Petzl headlamp. Or just read it online.

North Van Run by WestVanRun. Confused?

I’m tapering and by tapering I also mean trying to rehab a knee enough to convince it to work for just 194 minutes, give or take, next weekend. In spite of that, it was a busy week. I bought a new bicycle, one with more than one gear, which is nice. I decided to try out the indoor pool in my new-to-me building for a few laps of pool jogging and pool jogging sucks but it felt good so I’ll probably do it again (a lot again). And today I ran the North Van Run 10K and it was really great. This week has been a mental drag as I second guess myself on whether or not I’m going to meet my goals in the Victoria Marathon next weekend. Recap: Goal 1) run a BQ which means 3:14:59 or faster Goal 2) set a new PB which means 3:34:40 r faster Goal 3) don’t die. More on Goal 1 later. My plan for today was to run the first 5 KM at goal marathon pace and then run the second 5 KM faster. And it worked beautifully and was a lot of fun. At 5 KM I was right on 4:37/KM average pace and then I followed that with my third fastest 5 KM for a chip finish 43:46 good enough for 28 overall and 8 in my age group (my age group winner was the overall winner at who finished just over ten minutes before me). The weather was awful but I don’t mind running in the rain. The finish on this course, though, is ace. The last 1,500 metres are a nice downhill onto the straightway to the end of Burrard Dry Dock Pier looking out across the harbour to downtown Vancouver. I think it’s the best finish line I’ve run through.

I’m especially happy with my result today because of how everything felt at the start and throughout. Lately I’ve had to fight through pain for the first couple kilometres before everything loosened up but today I felt great through warm up and from the gun. It wasn’t easy to hold back and stick to my race plan; the NVR course is slopey but fast and I’m sure I could have set a new PB out there today. But I definitely didn’t want to blow a tyre a week before chasing a BQ in Victoria. I definitely got a confidence boost from today, but 3:14 is still very ambitious. Then the news this week: BQ times for 2019 are minus 4:52, and they’ve dropped the standard across the board by five minutes for 2020. I’m not interested in running Boston 2019 or 2020. But I want to run that BQ time. But I’m not running 3:09 in Victoria next weekend. But I want to end this somewhat positively so I’ll say that I’m still looking forward to crushing my first marathon time.