Tag: Strava

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).

2019 week twenty

Book Read
None

Kilometres Ran
44.8

2019 to date: 976 KM

We flew to Paris then took a train to Basel and in that 13 hours of travel plus the waiting around time — and there was a lot of waiting around time — I read virtually nothing. But I’m a bit ahead on the book count so I feel like that’s okay. A bit of a lost opportunity. I started a new novel but as is prone to happen I was not inspired to do much reading at all. But I ran. Our first full day in Basel was Friday and I did an 8 KM loop along the Rhine and over a couple bridges and only got lost a little bit within the last couple blocks near our rented flat.

The Dreiländereck spire at the corner of France, Germany and Switzerland.

Saturday I waffled back and forth over whether to run or rest but decided to run so that I could check out a monument called Dreiländereck that is situated a bit north along the Rhine at the end of a pier in an otherwise industrial area. The spire marks the intersection of France, Germany and Switzerland. (The actual point is in the middle of the river.) My plan was to go to bed a bit early and get a good sleep before the race but our neighbours upstairs had a plan of their own, which included a sing-along dance party to go with the Eurovision song contest finale. Apparently Switzerland placed fourth. I remember at one point Like a Prayer started and I thought it was the worst Madonna cover I’d ever heard (it was Madonna). The party finally finished at about 1:30 a.m.

Race package pick up at the Rathaus (Basel Old Town Hall).

The 3Laenderlauf half marathon started at 9:45 on Sunday morning from the Rathaus in Basel’s Market Square. I left the flat at 9:00 for a 1 KM jog to the start. It was a bit hectic there and the queue to check gear was a bit disorganized and spilled out onto the start area for the 10 KM event that started at 9:30 but the atmosphere was pretty great. The field wasn’t very large, and the two 1:44 pacers had positioned themselves close to the front of the corral, so I seeded myself a bit closer to the line. (It didn’t matter much — once the gun went off I both ran over and was run over by people who’d seeded themselves poorly.) I went into the race hoping for a decent run, but also knowing that just two weeks out from a new marathon PB and still pretty tired from all the travel not to mention the neighbour’s late night dance party, I probably wasn’t going to have a great performance. A 4:20 pace would give me a new half marathon PB but wouldn’t quite reach my sub-90 goal for 2019. I thought 4:20 was pretty lofty, but decided to aim for it and just see how long I could hold it for. Turns out, barely 5 KM.

Coming up to Dreirosenbrücke.

I sent Stephanie the Strava and Garmin beacons so that could track me but neither one worked. She was there anyway at the Dreirosenbrücke crossing the Rhine (race bridge number two) at 3.5 KM. I was running around 4:15 but knew that I was not going to hold that pace much longer. Crossed the river and went north into Saint-Louis, France, then a couple hundred metres before the 6 KM marker my Garmin vibrated 7 KM and I stopped paying attention. At 10 KM I checked the time: 45 minutes — I started thinking about my other two races in Europe and decided to try to chase a Europe PB. By 15 KM I was running on fumes; I needed to be under 1:10 and my watch said 1:08:16 but I was fading pretty hard.

Passerelle des Trois Pays – ramp or stairs?

This race course had a bit of everything, including a couple odd route choices. At the Passerelle des Trois Pays footbridge from France into Germany (race bridge number four) there was a switchback ramp but the route instead took us up the stairs. A couple kilometres later the route took us up a steep worn dirt path from the lower road up to Friedensbrücke (race bridge number five) over the Weil am Rhein train station lines. (A spot, I’ve discovered, that Google Street View has never filmed.) Next a couple kilometres through an open field in Platz der drei Länder park and then a few more along the gravel path beside the Wiese river, crossing back into Switzerland, and crossing the Wiese as it met the Rhine (race bridge number six). By now I was just focusing on being mindful of the experience and not worry about the time but when I crossed the Wiese I realized I was in the industrial area that I had run the day before and that familiarity gave me a bit of a lift with 4 KM left to go. The last leg followed the Rhine south then climbed up over Wettsteinbrücke (race bridge number seven) before a right turn and a nice decline for the sprint to the finish line back in the old Basel Market Square.

High fiving kids on the streets of Basel, CH.

Last year I ran 1:39:09 in Helsinki, and in 2017 I ran 1:38:27 in Copenhagen (a PB at the time). I figured it was pretty close but didn’t see the finish clock and didn’t trust my watch. I found Stephanie and collected my gear, finishers medal and shirt, and took a few photos. I didn’t see a place to check times so we hopped a LRT back to our flat. After a shower and something to eat I went online and found that I’d finished 1:37:43 which is over five minutes off my current PB, but a new fastest in Europe. Plus I had a ton of fun.

2019 week fifteen

Book Read
15. Goya, The Terrible Sublime – El Torres & Fran Galán

Kilometres Ran
week fifteen – 76.2

2019 to date: 727

I came across this book in the Lit Hub Daily newsletter and didn’t bother reading the Lit Hub article but ordered a copy of the book because I like Goya and I liked the idea of a graphic novel biography of an artist I like. I don’t read a lot of graphic novels but I don’t pooh-pooh them either since most have as much text as a typical poetry collection and the artwork can be spectacular. This book was okay. I thought Fran Galán did a beautiful job illustrating, but the story didn’t do much for me. El Torres’s story of Goya’s later years is inspired by the artist’s biography. Some of Goya’s most interesting work is the stuff he did as he descended further into mental illness. El Torres focuses on the descent, but not so much the art that resulted. I felt like that was a bit of a miss, considering the format is so image dependent.

I skipped the Vancouver Sun Run again this year and instead went for a leisurely jog along about 87 per cent of the BMO Marathon route. I rode the Skytrain to 41st street and basically ran the race course, minus the first bit and last bit and the out-and-back around 14KM. I’m going to over-analyze this run until the actual race (and probably beyond). I’ve had mixed feelings about it all day. I posted it to Strava as “demoralizing” and it definitely was over the last 8 or 9 KM as I completely gassed out in the flats around the Stanley Park Seawall. But there were some positives, too. I thought that the dreaded Camosun hill wasn’t as bad as the hype. Granted I wasn’t running race pace, but I thought a couple of the hills at last weekend’s April Fools Run half marathon on the Sunshine Coast were harder. The other positive was that my breathing and heart rate were both pretty casual over the whole 192 minutes, which I think it a great sign. Unfortunately, my legs do not have the same fitness as my heart and lungs. It’s hard not to second guess the process right now. I’m trying not to. But I’m concerned that my overall fitness just isn’t where it should be with just three weeks to go until the marathon.