Tag: Strava

2020 week three

Book Read
1. The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton

Kilometres Ran
week three – 57.6

2020 to date: 163 KM

I’ve been a de Botton fan for a while but I have a few gaps in my collection. Then before Christmas SC and I spent a day shopping local on Main Street and Mount Pleasant, which never excludes a visit to Pulp Fiction Books. These visits take longer than they did back when I lived a few blocks away and I could come in and quickly peruse the new arrivals and then carry on my merry way. Anyway, on this visit I didn’t get much farther then the new arrivals and ended up at the cash register with a small pile, including this de Botton title that had been on my radar for a while. And it did not disappoint. I think my only complaint is that de Botton tends to use “which” sans preceding comma and in every single instance when “that” would suffice, which annoys me slightly more than the lazy use of the Oxford comma but not quite as much as the comma splice. Incidentally, I also quite like le Corbusier and if you don’t then you might not share my enjoyment of this book. Okay, I have two complaints. The second is that the book is chock-full of fantastic photographs, all in black-and-white. I wish that they were most or all in colour.

Apparently this was the week to quit, and the weather definitely cooperated. I was quickly reminded that once you just get outside and do it, it is almost always way less terrible than you thought it was going to be.

Strava says that today is Quitter’s Day – according to their data, January 19, 2020 is the date they predict most people will give up their fitness resolutions. I have mixed feelings. I think New Year’s resolutions are dumb because they so often fail but then they’re arbitrarily attached to a date that only comes around once a year so there’s a tendency to put off trying again until the arbitrary date comes around again. If you can get past the arbitrary date, then I think resolutions can be great. I have read that it takes 21 days to create a new habit, so tripping on or before day 19 and then not getting back up makes sense. But I also read that the 21 days thing is bullshit. Maybe if you want to make positive change, just decide to do it, be ready to fail, and also determined to learn from failure and move the fuck on.

Pre-Icebreaker 8K warm up strides in Steveston. First race of 2020.

So this morning I woke up and dropped some Nuun into the CIM Finisher bottle I got after failing pretty hard back at the beginning of December last year and I went and ran my first race since – my first race of 2020 – the Icebreaker 8K. After snowing all week the weather warmed and the rain washed most of it away, and then it rather miraculously cleared up a bit to provide a slightly damp but otherwise pretty perfect race morning. I had set a rather arbitrary goal to run 31:30. I’d never raced an 8K before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, or where my fitness was at coming into the new year. I ran my best 5K and 10K this past September and I was rather curious to see if I could run 3:59s for eight kilometres and not die. Well, I’m alive. I had a great start and felt really good going through the first couple kilometres, and I just focused on keeping a steady pace through seven and then finish strong. It didn’t quite go that way, because by six kilometres I was really feeling it. I managed to catch a couple people who’d been leading me for most of the race. With just under a kilometre to go I was passed back by one who had a better finish kick than me, but I did manage a bit of a kick down the last long straight to the finish, crossing the line in gun time 31:40 (31:38 chip time) for 3:58 /km average (and very even) pace and fourth in my age group. I am very please with that result. My body felt good and still does a few hours later sitting here typing this. I was very close to my arbitrary goal, and exceeded my other. I checked off my January race with a smile, and I’m really looking forward to my first goal race of the year: the RunVan First Half half marathon in just three weeks.

All smiles post-race – a few of us from the Mile2Marathon crew (l2r): Katie, Meaghan, Mel, Rose and me. iPhone button pressing provided by Raymond Cayas.

Last thing: during some step near the Icebreaker finish and my post race warm down jog my Strava running odometer clicked over 10,000 KM and I think that’s pretty cool.

2019 week forty one

Book Read
39. The Nature Fix – Florence Williams

Kilometres Ran
week forty one – 68.4

2019 to date: 2,108 KM

I finally got around to reading this Alex Hutchinson recommended book and I thought it was mostly great but that’s the great thing about books put together like this, when they start to focus on kids you can just skip that part and it doesn’t take anything away from the plot. The really basic takeaway from this book is quite similar to the (also Hutchinson recommended) one I heaped acclamation upon earlier Running is my Therapy by Scott Douglas. If you were to distill both down they would say pretty much the same thing, and that is one way to decrease stress and increase happiness is to get outside, preferably with trees, even better near water. Douglas says to run while you do, and Williams for the most part agrees but is fine with some sort of activity.

So I chose for my activity reading, and the afternoon before the Victoria Half Marathon I took a couple hours and sat in a weather-beaten adirondack at Kitty Islet on the edge of McNeill Bay looking south across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and read a book about getting back to nature and watched seals bob and birds dive and got the inch-wide strip of bare skin between my pant cuff and my low cut socks absolutely ravaged by mosquitoes. But was I chill and ready to break my first sub-90 minute half marathon the next morning? Fuca!

I set this up to be my last chance to complete my goal to run a half marathon in under 90 minutes. My last 21.1 KM race was the Seawheeze back in August, which I ran on less than 12 hours notice and still nearly went under 90, finishing 1:31:43 and feeling like maybe it might come back to haunt me as a missed opportunity. But I was ready for Victoria and everything came together. I was a bit worried at the start, after a morning of race nerves in the stomach that lingered for a bit longer than usual. The gun went for the mass start of both the half and full marathon runners. My plan was to run a hair over 4:15/KM pace, which would get me to 10 miles in 1:08 and then run the last five (mostly downhill) with whatever I left. I went out a bit hot, splitting the first couple kilometres in 4:09*** and 4:04. I tried to let off the gas a little bit but I felt great, so I found a rhythm that felt just a bit uncomfortable that I could maintain. My goal pace at 10 km was 42:39, and my game plan was 42:30. I crossed 10 km at 41:30 and was still feeling pretty great. Other plan was to fuel at 6 km, 11 km and 16.1 km. First fuel was a wee bit late, and yet I felt a bit of fade coming on just past 11 km. Normally if you feel the need to fuel that means you’re too late. My experience with the two that I can stomach is Endurance Tap kicks in in 4-5 minutes, and Maurten in about half that time. I train with ET and I like it a lot, but I race with Maurten. I did falter a bit over the next few kilometres, but only compared to my pace to that point. I saw a 4:17 on my watch and thought I’d maybe blown my cushion but was still confident that 1:29:59 was within reach. I passed 16 km and when I didn’t see the 10 mile marker I checked my time. I wanted to be 1:08 but my watch said 1:07:30.

I took my last Maurten just before 17 km and hit the traffic jam. The course meets the mid point of the 8 km race, whose gun goes 50 minutes after the half and full, and everyone runs the last 4 km together to a shared finish. There are a lot of people running the 8 km race, and the ones I’m encountering don’t seem to know to stay to the right. I don’t think I lost any time, but it did get pretty crowded. I was able to pick it up and dodge my way down Dallas Road and still give a hard finish over the last 1,100 metres and finish 1:28:04 chopping 3:29 off of my personal best, and 2019 goal 5/6 achieved. Eight weeks until the California International Marathon and I have all of the confidence.

2019 Goals recap:
run 2,019 km – Oct 5th ✓
sub 6:00 Mile – 5:52 ✓
sub 20:00 5K – 19:40 ✓
sub 40:00 10K – 39:22 ✓
sub 1:30:00 HM – 1:28:04 ✓
marathon BQ – *pending*

***4:09 according to the Garmin app. I remember checking my Garmin watch and it read 4:08. According to Strava (which gets its information from Garmin) I ran either 4:10 (Strava iPhone app) or 4:11 (Strava browser).