Tag: Shipping

2020 week seven + eight

Stuff Read
The Believer #129 – Feb/Mar 2020

Kilometres Ran
week seven – 27.9
week eight – 68.4

2020 to date: 439 KM

I tend to impulsively buy myself Christmas presents around the holidays much to the chagrin of anyone and everyone who is trying to buy me a Christmas present or fill a stocking. This year was no exception when all of a sudden I decided to renew my subscription to The Believer, lapsed since 2007. Six issues delivered through my mail slot is $48 US dollars. But it’s worth it, I tell myself. Besides, although it’s now based in Las Vegas, they proudly announce that they’re printed right here in Canada. And then charge an additional $30 for shipping to Canada. US dollars. But I still tell myself that it’s worth it and then the first issue of my renewed subscription arrives through my mail slot and for the first time since, oh, probably, 2007, I read a periodical from cover to cover. And it’s great. I like the interviews with Rem Koolhaas and Jenny Slate, and especially love the article about palindromes titled “Palindromes, Palindromes, Motherfucker, What!” all which you can read online for free if you’re not willing to drop $78 USD for the in-real-life (or $18 +GST for this particular issue).

This photo from First Half by Taylor Maxwell is one of my favourites.

A couple days after racing First Half we flew away for a bit of a vacation to Mexico City. Eight days at 2,200 metres and my infantile stomach’s worst nightmare. So I got sick nearly immediately, then got better almost as quickly, then got sick again but exponentially worse. It was frustrating, not just because it was supposed to be a vacation but also because I was really interested in running at altitude and finding out what all the fuss was about. We arrived 7 a.m. on Wedesday and I ran Thursday morning and then Friday evening and then got violently ill and didn’t run again until Monday. Thursday’s run I got up bright an early to beat the heat and the absolutely insane traffic. I ran along Reforma, which is a major street in CDMX, to a large park that has quite the glow on Strava Heat Maps. A wrong turn from my planned route, I ended up following a couple other runners and found myself on a climb up to a castle at the top of a hill in the park that the locals like to run repeats up and down. The circuit up and down is about 1 km, with about 40 metres of elevation. It sucked. I really wanted to do it again.

Couple CDMX landmarks, the Angel of Independence (getting a facelift) and the Neo-Classical on the outside Art Deco on the inside Palacio de Bellas Artes.

On the Friday evening I set out in the dark and pouring rain to try to find what appeared to be a track about 2.5 KM to the east of where we were staying, and it was a disaster. I reached the edge of where I thought it should be, but found myself looking across six lanes of highway in the dark in the rain with no way across. Along the way I slipped and fell in a flooded street, covered on one side in muck, skinned knee, bashed elbow, absolutely miserable. I would spend the rest of the night back at our rented flat sitting on a toilet cradling a bucket in my lap. (I am currently 2.5 KG below peak marathon training weight. I do not endorse this diet plan.) It was the worst run of my running, and cannot imagine how it will ever be beaten. But it got better. Monday wasn’t great but I managed 7 KM before my stomach said, “No more.” Then Tuesday was better and I managed 11 KM and a few strides along Reforma that really gave me a taste for the elevation. Breathing is hard (and the air quality is atrocious) and I found myself out of breath pretty easily. I don’t have the best circulation anyway, but my hands were so cold and my arms went numb. It was an odd experience.

We flew home Wednesday afternoon, which mean one last run that morning, and I went for it pretty hard, repeating the route from day one but this time hitting the hill up to Chapultepec Castle five times for a 16 KM workout. Hill repeats at altitude; it was effing hard and a lot of fun. I had a great time in Mexico City and I really want to go back there again soon. I do feel a bit ripped off that I managed to get so sick and I wish that I could have done a lot more running while I was there. I got a wee taste of altitude training and I’m still curious about it. And then the day we flew home Alex Hutchinson publishes “The Skeptic’s Take on Altitude Training” in Outside and I take a deep breath and shrug.

2018 week twenty eight

Book Read:
35. Runner: Harry Jerome, World’s Fastest Man — Norma Charles

Kilometres Ran:
week twenty eight — 47.0

To date: 1,414 KM

Weeks like these I’m very glad to be ahead in my reading goal. I didn’t know this was a children’s book. I just knew that it was nominated for a 2018 BC Book Prize. That it is a children’s book I figured out in the first few paragraphs, unlike, for instance, by the fact that it was nominated for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Anyway, the book is a biography-as-novel that tells the true story of Harry Jerome, a kid from Winnipeg whose family ends up in Vancouver, and who goes on to crush the 100 metres in the 1960s, earning the title World’s Fastest Man. There’s an excellent bronze statue of him at the 1 mile marker on the Stanley Park Seawall. I liked this book because I like Harry Jerome. I also like how well Norma Charles did capturing and presenting the ugly racism that Jerome faced throughout his career, and especially her presenting it in a way accessible to young readers. The book is a quick read–it is a children’s book after all. I think it’s worth reading at any age. I’ve made habit of late of linking the book I write about back to its publisher’s page whenever possible, and I have here as usual. I wanted to buy my copy straight from Red Deer Press. The problem is that the list price for the book is $12.95 but the shipping was an additional $19.07 so I bought it from the devil for $12.95 plus free shipping. I still feel bad about it. Sort of.

Slacking off in the sunshine.

Weeks like these I’m very glad to be ahead in my running goal. I’m 331 KM ahead of pace to reach 2,018 KM this year. However, I am 329 KM behind pace to reach 2,018 miles this year. And if I’m going to achieve my BQ goal in twelve weeks I’m going to need to have no more 47 KM weeks for at least the next 10 or so. The excuses for the paltry running this week are threefold. First, I spent today, AKA long-run Sunday, at the office, and now I’m typing instead of running. Second, instead of 8-12 KMs of hills on Thursday, I did the Grouse Grind, which is only a couple KMs. Or, according to Garmin, 1.9 KM. And third, my knee is acting up. This is the very frustrating since bad knee is right, but current acting up knee is left. So I’m trying to be careful with my load, while at the same time loading for Victoria Marathon, and staring down a 21.1 KM race in Kamloops in seven days. I was born and raised in Kamloops, but I’ve never run there unless you count my single day on the high school track team where I ran the 200 and 400 metres 25 years ago. So we’ll see what happens on July 22. The course is flat and fast, but it’s at elevation (only 345 metres, but that’s about 300 more than I’m used to) and, as usual for summer in B.C.’s interior, it’s going to be about 34 C and forest fire smokey. Should be great fun.