Tag: RunVan

2019 week forty two

Book Read
40. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan

Kilometres Ran
week forty two – 40.6

2019 to date: 2,149

I think that this book was a book that I was “supposed to” read before I went and spent eight days in Paris back in the spring and I hope that’s not the case because it has nothing to do with Paris and while I recognize that it is “good” it really did nothing for me and if it had been longer I am sure that I would have put it down long before finishing. Cécile is the seventeen-year-old narrator of a summer spent in the Riviera with her rather care-free (hedonist) father. She is about as reliable a narrator as a you might imagine from a teenage narrator with a father who behaves much like he’s a teenager still too. And good for him, but then along comes Anne and she does her best to straighten out both of them, which also goes about as well as you might imagine. I had to remind myself a few times that the ideas in the book seem rather juvenile but that might be because Sagan wrote it when she was eighteen. I didn’t particularly like it but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a decent novella, just not to my liking. Moving on.

As should come as a surprise to no one who’s been following along, my Marathon Photos from the Victoria Half Marathon on Thanksgiving were terrible. But here’s a pretty great photo by Matt Cecill featuring me in full float coming up Dallas Road a little past 16 km. Thanks Matt!

I’ve been biking a lot and in the course of that developed a bit of a weird stiffness in my right leg that I’ve been going to physio about, which is nothing that concerns me because it has had zero effect on my running but lately as my running has ramped up I’ve done less cycling and I’ve noticed that my knees have started to bother me again. I swear that the cycling kept them in check so it makes sense that less cycling would mean a recurrence of some knee niggles but i had also hoped that we were past that by now. Last Sunday I raced pretty hard at the Victoria Half Marathon and I took Monday off completely and then went for a long bike ride on Tuesday after not biking for over a week and then followed that in the evening with a pretty casual 10 km around the park and my right calf and knee were a bit of a bother but nothing of concern. Wednesday was regular physio for aforementioned leg thing and I mentioned the calf and knee and my physiotherapist, bless her, is an amateur poker player at best and suggested that I take it easy for a few days. She expressed more concern about my calf than my knee, but she put the ultrasound on my knee for a best and then told me no Wednesday night workout with the crew so I took the rest of the day off. Thursday and Friday I spun on the cycle trainer and I was feeling pretty good on Saturday morning so I went out for my scheduled 30 km training run. The run went fine, and the calf issue is gone, but holyshit my knee is not very happy with me and now I’m more than a bit concerned about the fact that I am pacing the 1:45 half marathon at the Fall Classic this weekend and then following that with the 10 km race at goal marathon pace and then following that with the 5 km race at easy pace for the first official Fall Classic Hat Trick – a dude did it a few years ago but back then you had to hammer the half because the 10 km gun went just 90 minutes after the half gun. This year RunVan adjusted the start times to make it a bit easier for us hackers – 10 km two hours after the half start, and 90 minutes before the 5 km start. Suffice it to say, knee better get its shit together, and not just because of the Fall Classic, but far more importantly I’m just 50 days away from toeing the line at the California International Marathon.

2019 week thirty six

Book Read
35. Wilful Disregard – Lena Andersson

Kilometres Ran
week thirty six – 69.9

2019 to date: 1,751

Translated from Swedish by Sarah Death, Wilful Disregard tells the story of Ester Nilsson, a young intellectual who falls in love with a (much older) famous visual artist. That’s really all that you need to know because just about every other cliché is on display throughout this novella, and yet I thought it was very good. The story is entirely from Ester’s perspective and there are times that I want to grab her and give her a good shake (not unlike her “girlfriend chorus” who play much the same role and do just about as well as Jiminy Cricket). Today I learned that there is a sequel by the translated title Acts of Infidelity, which given the rather apt title of the first, makes me quite curious about the sequel. So I picked up a copy and I sort of feel like it should sit high on the to-read pile. I’ll let you know how it goes soon I’m sure. I find it difficult to sympathize with Ester but I’m invested now and what to find out what happens next. Like watch a car catch fire in an accident and hanging around just to see if it will explode.

This photo of me by Debra Kato looking very official counting laps at the Vancouver Distance Track Series 10,000 event a little over a week ago. I feel like I need a job that involves a clipboard.

It was, for the most part, a rather uneventful week running and by uneventful I mean that maybe in a good way. The slow build towards December is coming along just fine such that I’m waiting wondering when the bad stuff is going to happen. So I made an appointment to see my physiotherapist just to check in for a maintenance visit next week. I’ve had a nagging pain in my hips that hasn’t bothered my running at all but it annoyingly sharp when I’m not. And then, within 48 hours or so of making an appointment I went for a run and my hip flexors were not very happy. They calmed down after a couple hundred metres and it could be due to the 27 KM I ran yesterday. I expect I’ll get some answers this week. They will probably sound something like, “you really need to warm up before / stretch and foam roll after / do some cross training / maybe something (anything) with some lateral movement.” I mean, those are all true but I’ve never had any hip issues before. I’d rather not mess up the very full fall I have lined up: one week until Eastside 10K, three weeks until NorthVanRun 10K, five weeks until Victoria half, seven weeks until Fall Classic half/10/5 and then the big one, thirteen weeks until California International Marathon.

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.