Tag: Specialized Diverge

2019 week eight

Book Read
8. Bad Endings – Carleigh Baker

Kilometres Ran
week eight – 37.1

2019 to Date: 328

Bad Endings is a collection of 15 short stories by (currently) Vancouver-based writer Carleigh Baker. Many of the stories are also set in Vancouver, and one particularly depressing one is set in my hometown of Kamloops. Well, they’re all pretty depressing. The Kamloops one, though, crept up on me like, “this seems familiar, and not just the mood.” Sure, they’re dark and a few really do have bad endings but not badly written, just displeasurable – sort of like the ending of tonight’s Academy Awards that’s just wrapped up vying for my attention in the background. Baker has another piece (that I’m now even more looking forward to reading) in the Vancouver Noir collection that’s currently sitting in the to-read pile.

Ten weeks to go before the BMO Marathon and I’m still spending equal time riding a bicycle to nowhere as I am running. And could spinning a cycle training be any more boring? I thought that pool jogging was bad. Actually, pool jogging is probably worse. At least on a cycle trainer I can zone into something rather than just zoning out. So with a couple elastic bands I strapped my iPad onto the handlebars and cued up Netflix and tried to distract myself from the fact that not only am I not going anywhere, but on a whatever-the-opposite-of-smart-is cycle trainer there is zero coasting. Too bad The Punisher doesn’t have less coasting. I mean it’s okay but pick up the pace, please. Anyway, while BMO is t-minus-ten, WestVanRun is just one week away and just last night I noticed that they’ve changed up the courses for both the 5K and 10K both of which I’m going to race, and they look really fast. My plan was to chase a sub 20 in the 5K and go have a fun run for the 10K but now I’m wondering about chasing a 10K PB too the following day. I have no idea how that will go, but I really want to give both a try. I’m not letting Baker write the finale, though.

2019 week three

Book Read
3. How Does A Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? – Doretta Lau

Kilometres Ran
week three – 21.6

To date – 128 KM

I’ve written in the past my contemplations around whether you have to read every single short story in a short story collection in order to have “read the book” and I wonder if there’s a percentage, like at least 60 per cent or something but it doesn’t really matter because I read every single word of this Doretta Lau collection and loved it, which only made me wonder what the hell took me so long to get around to reading it. But then she drops a Landy / Bannister reference that if I’d read back in 2014 when the book came out I probably never would have gotten and it only made me love it more.

A taped up achilles to go with my first race bib of 2019.

Today was the first race of the year and the first race of my 2019 goal to run one race per month. I took it pretty easy this week, only running an 8 KM trial from the Stanley Park Seawall marker 0 KM to 8 KM (clever) with a few kilometres warm up and jog home. Then Friday morning I went to my physiotherapy appointment to check on my aggravated achilles and was told that racing today was not recommended, that I should stick to no farther than 5 KM and no hills but more frequently but I sort of stopped listening after no Icebreaker 8K race. I had been researching cycle trainers and thought that with the news Friday I might as well set up my bicycle to pedal to nowhere so I bought a gently use CycleOps Fluid2 off Craigslist for a deal and I still have a lot to learn because of course it didn’t include the adapter not that it matters since my Specialized Diverge has thru-axel mounts and not quick-release so I found an adapter online and ordered it and it might arrive by next Monday. No, not tomorrow, the other next Monday. The race that I care about, the First Half, runs three weeks from today. I’m not going to get much training on my feet but I’m hoping that if I mix in some time on the bike this year’s race won’t be as disappointing as last year’s. I’ve all but written off setting a new personal best – that would take a miracle (of which there’s no such thing). I only hope that I’ll get to race. It’s been a depressing couple days.